MeetFighters News

Nice work: thank you.

Outstanding. Thank you

Good ideas which should help.
Only one thing that might need smoothing out is the marking as a screen shot.

Just cause a pic is a screenshot does not mean it's fake or manipulated.... every one of my hundreds of action pics are screenshots from video of the match.
Have you ever tried taking a shot at the exact second a moving object is in the perfect position, it's impossible! So we snap the best frame from a video clip.
I hope these will not fall under the umbrella of being suspicious pics and labeled as such!

Appreciate the work you're doing. Meetfighters is an amazing site but I totally agree with this guy. All my pics are screenshots taken from videos or motion photo mode as its the only way to get half decent pics. It would be a great shame to mark pics of guys who are just trying to show they do actually "meet fighters" and wrestle as suspicious.

Thanks for bringing this up. Our team has weighted the pros and cons of watermarking screenshots at great length. Our position is:

• People are smart enough to draw their own conclusions. "Oh, it's a screenshot from a video of this guy" is an obvious one.
• Screenshots are not otherwise penalized (other than not being usable as your avatar photo, but that has no effect on your action videos anyway).

To your specific point: Most smart phones and software like VLC can export a still frame from a video. You want to try this because generally the quality will be better than screenshotting a video player!

Interesting Re VCL, I never knew... will use from now on.
Thanks for the tip!

Thanks for bringing this up. I use a lot of screenshots from my fight and sparring videos, too.

Same thought...

AI turns me off. Another site I used is full of wrestling AI. I hate it. If yout having to use it you cannot be genuine. I have my own ways to verify people from their pictures. I would encourage everyone else to put their own steps to verify people, rather that putting all your faith into pictures

Are there also guarantees that real photos and videos on this platform (including those used for verification) will not be harvested for AI training?

You don't need to worry about that.

Google wouldn't want to ruin their model by training it on your data. :D

Oh, they wish their sets were as fuzzy as me.

Oh, I wish their sets were as fuzzy and hairy as you ;)

We wish their sets were were-sets 🐺

Maybe not, but still would be nice to not see our photos being used in ways we didn't agree to like what happened to me on another wrestling site that has changed completely. I'm still finding older pictures of me on different message boards when a facial search is done.

That's exactly why I'm here and not there, but also why I joined the online wrestling community years ago and promptly left

With the rampant scraping AI companies engage in, no there is no real way you can ensure that, perhaps write to your local representative?

I could Indeed write to several people and remind them how many precious metals and semiconductors can be found in a data center (just as a form of academic trivia), that's a good idea.

The answer is no, we don't do that.

Have a look at our (deliberately short!) Privacy policy

You'll notice most sites have absurdly long privacy policies, and there's a reason for that. Those pages exist mostly to list the army of third-party partners they share your data with. We don't have that list, because we don't have those partners. Your data stays with us. We never sell it, never share it for marketing, and we don't train AI on it, including your verification photos and videos.

The reason we can say that comes down to how we keep the lights on. We don't make money by plastering ads on the site (which always means embedding a pile of data-harvesting trackers), and we don't make money selling your data. The only way this site survives is through voluntary contributions from members like you. Which requires zero data harvesting.

At first when I saw your comment I'm like "how can they prevent or guarantee that so I looked it up. Section 3 below are things MF can consider doing, the rest would be up to YOU to do with your images before uploading:

1. Active Defense & Disguise Tools

Glaze: Applies a cloaking filter to your images that confuses AI models regarding the image’s visual characteristics and style.

Nightshade: A tool that adds invisible "noise" to an image. When AI models ingest sufficient amounts of these poisoned images, it actively disrupts their ability to correctly categorize and generate similar concepts.

2. Lock Down Website Crawlers
If you host your own website, you can actively block AI scraping bots:

Robots.txt: Update your website's robots.txt file to explicitly restrict known AI scraping bots (e.g., GPTBot, CCBot, Anthropic-ai) from crawling your image folders.

Cloudflare: Use Cloudflare’s Web Application Firewall to automatically block known AI scraper user agents.

3. Adjust Platform Privacy Settings

Major social media and hosting platforms have data-mining opt-outs in their privacy centers.

Meta (Instagram/Facebook): Navigate to the Privacy Center and submit an objection form to stop Meta AI from training on your public data.

Adobe: Turn off "Content Analysis" in your Adobe Account Privacy settings so your images aren't scanned for Adobe Firefly AI.

X/Twitter: Adjust your account privacy settings to opt-out of data usage for training the Grok AI model.

4. Image & Metadata HygieneStrip EXIF Data: Remove location tags, dates, and camera details from your photo files before uploading them.

Reduce Resolution: Post your work in low resolution (e.g., standard JPGs), making them less valuable for high-quality machine learning.

Watermarks: While AI can sometimes remove them, complex and prominent watermarks reduce the overall utility of your photos to unauthorized scrapers.

Thank you guys for bringing awareness to this! I was messaged by someone who wanted a match (had no past opponents), and he had sent me AI pictures of him putting someone in a submission hold and then tried lying about it (they didn’t even have wrestling gear on, just a hoodie and sweatpants). I could tell immediately.

Sadly, AI generated photos are being shared everyday on all kinds of social media apps, and with AI constantly improving - it means this can and WILL only get worse. A lot of times I think you can tell right away, but we should all be mindful of WHAT we share and WHO we talk to. Scary times.

Thank u
It’s really a great problem

Funnily enough I clicked on your link to show examples of A.I. and all 3 of the examples have subsequently viewed my profile.

So, which of the 3 was ai generated? 😜

All of them.

Ok the first 2 were obvious, the 3rd got me.

We've all been bots the whole time.

I hate ai always have always will

Merci pour votre étude

To be honest there are plenty of Meet Fighters members using old photos of themselves in their younger days, so A.I. enhanced photos aren't a great deal different. I've got some A.I. photos on my own profile however they're absurdly enhanced and all contained within an album clearly labelled AI Photos.
I think the easiest way to assess the integrity of a person's profile is by viewing their past opponents and recommendations and reading what they've said in their profile.

Agreed, too many fake accounts is incredibly annoying,.
Out of interest,,the pics you listed about which one is AI, is it number 2?

All three pics are AI generated.

Oh wow, I knew 1 is,,but the others, I would have absolutely no idea.
Good work guys 💪

The logo on the singlet is supposed to be SMMASH, for example. The logo on the grappling dummy is pretty mutated too.
Text is usually a good tell, but won't be a reliable way to check in the future... It's getting a lot better at keeping consistency with text.

So it means that AI photos can be used in our blogs to go with our wrestling stories for example?

That's correct.

The mission of MeetFighters is still facilitating meetings between fighters, and to that AI pics are a detriment. But there's no reason you can't use them in a fantasy story.

You guys are incredible! Thanks for all you work!

AI pictures are everywhere, you have Instagram or X accounts of fakes guys or of guys reworking all their pictures with AI without ever saying so just to appear more attractive. This is pathetic.

Concerning the examples, the first one is quite convicing but there is something off with the belly part of the picture, looks too clean compared to the rest -> AI
The second is obviously fake, it transpire artificiality -> AI
The last one do no depicte anything crazy but the blurry Nike logo and the gibberish text on the outfits tell the tale -> AI

Globally, there is always something that looks off in AI generated pictures, as convincing as they may be.
Blurry text or inconsistencies between pictures (shape of the muscles, navel) are a good way to indentify it.

One Thing I like to add:
It's important to zoom into a picture to proof if it's AI. Textures are important to analyse. Written language is distorted. So please add that feature to improve the analysis

My issue has been with fake profiles. I find the same 30 guys changing names and locations and they claim meets but yet the guys they calim as past opponents are cyber guys or guys who are no longer on line. I have one guy in Kentucky has used at least 5 names in the past couple of years. He has set up fights and not shown. He has invited guys to come fight him and stay the weekend and he just does not exist. He has been on and off here regular for a long rtime. People who are turned in for being fakes should at least have a mark under their names.

I agree, have burned that way in the past myself...

We are all going to have to video chat prior to matches to verify a person is real.

I hate it but I think you are correct

That's a very good strategy.

The second picture looks ai and the first and third picture does not I was looking at and thank you admin for the information

All of them are AI generated.

Such important and valuable information. Well done men

I think I've spotted a problem with some of the New Stuff photos that you've marked as "Screen Shots" in most of them the subject is actually taking a photo of himself with his phone camera in a mirror, a lot of phone cameras take "motion photos" by default allowing you to pick the clearest image, so effectively your posting a still photograph from a slit second video but is being labelled as a "screen shot" which implies something isn't right.

This is not true.

I suppose its up to us/you to properly verify someone before meeting them. Use telegram, no need to exchange numbers you can do it with username alone. Set up a video call so you can both see each other and ask questions.

It keeps your privacy and helps you to verify

Ive set up chats before now and only a few have actually done it. Lots of others say they will but never do, so thats a red flag to me. You cant show your face on a call then theres a reason for it

If you actually care about privacy and security, then use Signal (or some other messenger with a transparent protocol and org structure) and NOT telegram!

A sugestion for the upcomping Wrestlefests: Offer a account verification at wrestelfest!
I am on this site for more than 10 Years and met 50+ Opponents. Have been at Wrestlefest berlin, I am still not considered real.
Well that could be changed easily!

I verified my profile when I downloaded the App, it wasn't too difficult they sent me a code I had to write on a sheet of paper which I then had to photograph whilst holding it in front of me, that was it done.
On top of that I'm a contributing member (as are you) and I've got past opponents and recommendations from them so there can be no doubt I'm me.

Just click here to verify, it takes less then a minute, can be done at any time and we even made a video tutorial.
There is no need to be at a WrestleFest, it would not speed up the process, in fact it would add a lot of administrative overhead on our support team, the organizers and probably you. The time you need to find a quite moment to get verified, the same is needed to it it quickly on you own. It is not complicated at all.

But, I would be curious to know why you think it would be beneficial to do at an event instead of online - what is your pain point currently with the system?

Well I thought that it would be easier. I will check out the verification process in detail

I just reported an AI profile yesterday that hit me up, so this is heartening to hear. Thank you for the post!

Excellent post about the dangers posed by AI cartoons (I consider them cartoons as they are not real).

Another way of detection "someone" playing these games is by their opponent count. If someone saying they are an IRL fighter is on this site for less than a year, I will engage with them in chat/messaging. If someone has been on here over a year with no listed opponents, that makes me suspicious. As the account ages, and the opponent count still is zero, sorry I consider that to be someone who is just here to take other's time in spinning their own fantasies.

The real overarching danger is when one AI account challenges another AI account then that is the death knell for all of us. Shortly they are going to go for the nuclear launch codes and we all are fucked.

What happens if you ask AI to assess if a picture is genuine or a fake ? It would be turning AI from poacher to gamekeeper...

Unfortunately current generation vision models cannot make the assessment reliably.

Thanks for the update and the transparency. AI is truly a force for evil

Can be but could also be good

Thank you for your due diligence

Finally we're doing something about AI pictures. I keep reporting them.

Maybe it's because I'm used to sleuthing out pictures on this site as I've been doing it for so long, but I can tell all 3 of those pictures are AI. The 3rd one is less obvious, but there are still tells that it's an AI picture. For example, the lighting in the 3rd picture is flat and there's no correct shadows over the person. Their facial skin is too perfect. And nearly all AI skin has this slightly plastic-y or wax-y texture if you look closely enough.

This may come across as hard-line, but I think that all AI pictures should only exist in the back-up album off the main profile. And they can never be on the main profile or the main picture. *Personally* I'd love it if we just removed all AI pictures from the site altogether and banned them. Is this an option? If someone wants to obscure a tattoo or whatever they can do this easily with phone apps or even Microsoft Paint if their computer is a potato.

We debated both alternatives internally for days: banning AI-generated pictures completely or hiding them in a separate album.

However, we ultimately reached the conclusion outlined above.

Marking pictures as AI-generated or screenshots is an important first step. We will continue to monitor the situation on our site and how AI develops more broadly.

As we classify these pictures through our internal systems, peer review, and user reports, we remain flexible and may adjust our approach in the future if necessary.

yes, yes, yes! No to GenAI!

Hello. Can someone help me. I cannot now send a pic. I get a message asking if it is a screenshot or an AI image - it's neither - and whichever one I tick, it will not download.Hrlp me please.

If your photo is neither AI nor screenshot then do not check either of those boxes. Instead click on the "Save" button, and it will upload just fine.

My god. I am now spending more time in navigating new photos to identify which are AI-generated.

With new technology making pics and videos to look like IRL (in real life), similar to all the phone and internet SPAM, people cannot make a difference it is true or fake. Any attempt to weed out spam or fake stuff is appreciated!
Thank you MF.

Photoshop has been around for years, and our cameras already take beautified photos of ourselves automatically.

Furthermore, we always choose our best photos, the one with good angles, good lighting, and we often don't update our profile pictures.

Ultimately, we all wear our masks and create this persona here on the website of a virile and fierce fighter, which bears no resemblance to our real-life personalities.

Ultimately, everything can be clarified with a few simple questions: Are your photos real? Did you modify them? etc.?However, not everyone is truly interested in knowing what the users here are like. They prefer the fantasy of chatting with their perfect match, their soulmate from the other side of the world, ...which is everything you've ever dreamed.

If you're fooled by the AI photos, it's as if deep down you wanted that very thing.

Thanks for the heads up but AI is a nightmare all over the social media

Are images going to be watermarked "Screenshot" or "AI" (separate labels) or are they all going to say "Screenshot"? So far I've only seen the latter watermarks.

These are two different watermarks.
AI one: https://www.meetfighters.com/photo/1991556

Thanks Admin! Agreed with your ideas, since we cannot runaway from the AI future, at least we have to think of how to handle this problem and this is a good start. Here in Peru, somebody tried to published and get author protection rights for a book entirely written by AI, thanks god the authorities rejected. The book is out there on sale, but it wont have author protection rights. We need to keep our eyes more open than ever now living in a world shared with AI.

I like the merging of the photo peer review categories. I always had a hard time picking between Safe and Mild.

Great work folks - thank you! 🤼

This is great. TY!

I use AI for a good deal in my professional life (actually training and developing models and such) and also don't hate some wrestling AI images. But, using it to generate or enhance your identifying profile pic should definitely be a no.

I wonder about groups (like scissors, bigger v. smaller, etc.). Are AI images allowed in those?

If we were to add some AI pics anywhere, is there a way we can indicate that? I guess putting it in the title makes sense, right? Is there a tagging system, or a way to tell the system a pic is AI generated when adding it?

AI Generated pictures get tagged automatically.

And yes, as mentioned further up, you can use them in your blog posts or the forum, interest groups.

The goal is to make the profiles and mainly the main avatar picture AI free, showing the real person. Enhancing your blogs with AI pics, is also fine.