On Monday, January 12, the UK communications regulator Ofcom announced the launch of an investigation into the social platform X, owned by Elon Musk. The move follows reports that the AI chatbot Grok is being used to create sexualized deepfakes of women and children without their consent. The inquiry will assess whether the platform has complied with the requirements of the Online Safety Act, which obliges companies to protect users in the UK from illegal content.
“Extremely troubling reports have emerged that the Grok AI chatbot account on platform X has been used to generate and distribute images of people without clothing—which may fall under the definition of intimate image abuse or pornography—as well as sexualized images of children, which could constitute child sexual abuse material,” Ofcom said in a statement.