The European Union on Monday, January 26, opened an investigation into Elon Musk's X platform over the AI chatbot Grok's generation of sexualized deepfake images of women and minors, in the latest step of an international backlash against the tool. Grok faces an outcry after it emerged that users could sexualize images of women and children using simple text prompts such as "put her in a bikini" or "remove her clothes."
"In Europe, we will not tolerate unthinkable behaviour, such as digital undressing of women and children," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. "It is simple – we will not hand over consent and child protection to tech companies to violate and monetize. The harm caused by illegal images is very real," she said in a statement to Agence France-Presse.
European Commission for Technological Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen said the probe would "determine whether X has met its legal obligations" under the bloc's Digital Services Act (DSA), which is designed to police internet giants. She said the rights of women and children in the EU should not be "collateral damage" of X's services.
Brussels said it was investigating whether X had properly mitigated "risks related to the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material."
