Tunic, Night in the Woods Publisher Says TikTok Is Creating and Running Racist GenAI Ads for Its Games Without Permission

Tunic, Night in the Woods Publisher Says TikTok Is Creating and Running Racist GenAI Ads for Its Games Without Permission Southeast Asia Home Amazon Deals Pro-tips by Codashop PC PS4 Xbox One Nintendo Mobile Entertainment EsportsMoreSearch Home More About IGN SEAContactAdvertisePressUser AgreementPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyRSSIGN Southeast Asia is operated under license by Media Prima Digital Sdn Bhd (199901014126) Change Region United States United Kingdom Australia Africa Adria Serbian/Croatian Adria Slovenian Benelux / Dutch Brazil China / 中国 Czechia / Slovakia France Germany Greece / Ελλάδα Hungary India Israel Italy / Italia Japan / 日本 Korea / 한국 Latin America Middle East – English Middle East – الأوسطالشرق Nordic Poland Portugal Southeast Asia Spain / España Turkey / Türkiye world.ign.com Register / Login Register / Login Login Register Night in the Woods Tunic, Night in the Woods Publisher Says TikTok Is Creating and Running Racist GenAI Ads for Its Games Without Permission Night in the Woods, Usual June among games impacted. 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By Rebekah Valentine  Updated: Feb. 20, 2026, 9 p.m. Related reads:MapleStorySEA Celebrates 20th Anniversary With Massive Summer Updates Finji, publisher of beloved indie titles such as Night in the Woods and Tunic and the developer behind Overland and Usual June, says that TikTok has been using generative AI to modify its ads on the platform without permission and pushing those ads to its users without Finji’s knowledge, including one ad that was modified to include a racist, sexualized stereotype of one of Finji’s characters.More like thisOpen Back Headphones: A Sound Experience Like No OtherThis was first brought up by Finji CEO and co-founder Rebekah Saltsman on Bluesky, where she shared a screencap of a social media post from another brand that appeared to be going through the same thing, and saying the following, “If you happen to see any Finji ads that look distinctly UN-Finji-like, send me a screencap.”Unusual JuneAccording to Saltsman speaking with IGN, Finji’s official account on TikTok does push ads for its games, but has “AI turned all the way off.” The team first learned that generative AI ads were being created without their knowledge thanks to social media comments on Finji’s actual, regular ads from users concerned about what they were seeing. Saltsman was able to get screenshots from audience members showing the offending ads, which prompted her to escalate the issue to TikTok support.The original ads in question appear to be videos advertising Finji’s games, with one showing off several games and the other focused on Usual June. The AI-“enhanced” versions, which appear on TikTok as if posted directly from the official Finji account, seem to consist of slideshows rather than videos as indicated by a number of comments on both ads. Finji has sent IGN screenshots sent in by viewers who claim they saw the AI version of those ads. While several of the AI-“enhanced” images seem to be relatively unedited compared to their official counter parts, one image seen by IGN is noticeably modified. Official, unmodified artwork for Usual JuneThe offending image depicts an edited version of the official cover art, the original version of which is pictured above. In the seemingly AI-edited version, the main character June (center in the image above) is depicted alone, but the image extends down to her ankles. She is depicted with a bikini bottom, impossibly large hips and thighs, and boots that rise up over her knees, seemingly invoking a harmful stereotype. This is extremely distinct from June’s actual depiction in the game:IGN has viewed a conversation between the official Finji account and TikTok customer support, including a part of the discussion where the customer support agent confirmed Finji did have TikTok’s “Smart Creative” option shut off. “Smart Creative” is essentially a TikTok function that uses generative AI to create multiple versions of user-created ads. So if a company makes Ad A with Image A and Text A, and Ad B with Image B and Text B, generative AI will mix and match these in different combinations to test which versions of the ads work best with users, and then surface the best ones more frequently. There’s also an “Automate Creative” feature that uses AI to “automatically optimize” assets, such as “improving” images, music, audio, and other things to make an ad allegedly more pleasing to an audience. Saltsman confirms that Finji has both of those options shut off, and showed screenshots of the TikTok backend for several of the ads in question to confirm this.Finji also says it is unable to view or edit the AI-generated versions of its own ads, and is only aware of them via numerous comments on the ads as well as users in its official Discord reporting the problem and sharing screenshots. Saltsman says she suspects there is at least one other inappropriate generative AI ad circulating based on comments on some of the ads regarding another character in Usual June, Frankie, but is unable to see the modifications herself and thus cannot confirm. Saltsman adds that she has since ended the ad campaigns in question, believing that to be the only way to stop the seemingly AI-modified images from circulating.In that same support conversation, the TikTok support agent was unable to find an immediate solution for Finji. At one point, the agent suggests that one of Finji’s ads was inadvertently using the Automate Create feature, to which Finji replies, “I have never turned that on,” and had the agent confirm that option was not on for the ads described above.Later in the conversation, the agent said, “I am checking all the possible cause [sic] why this can happen but as per checking all the setup is clear and there should be no ai generated content included.” The agent offers to “raise a ticket” for further investigation, but ignored repeated requests from Finji to share a timeline for when the ticket might be responded to.The Support Circle of HellSince this incident took place, Finji staff have made efforts to follow up and get answers, only to be shut down by TikTok support repeatedly. Finji has sent IGN screenshots of all of the following messages to TikTok, and their responses.The above conversation happened on February 3. On February 6, after a follow-up message to support from Finji asking for an update, TikTok Ads Support responded as follows:After checking the creatives, we do not see any indication that AI-generated assets or slideshow formats are being used. Both ads are confirmed as video creatives sourced directly from your Creative Library / TikTok posts, and creatives appear unchanged at the ad level. There is no evidence that AI-generated content or auto-assembled slideshow assets were added by the system. [All emphasis TikTok’s.]A Finji representat