The UK is reportedly considering a decision to ban Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter), per The Telegraph. Great Britain may ban the app and website from being accessed in the United Kingdom due to recent controversy around the platform’s AI undressing women and children in photographs.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said yesterday that he had asked media regulator Ofcom for “all options to be on the table” after it emerged that child sexual abuse images had been generated using X’s AI chatbot, Grok. “This is disgraceful. It’s disgusting, and it’s not to be tolerated,” the Prime Minister said. “X needs to get their act together and get this material down – and we will take action on this because it’s simply not tolerable.”
UK to Pin Down on X’s Grok Bot After AI-Generated Explicit Images
On Wednesday, a UK internet watchdog warned it had uncovered images created with Grok that had been shared on a dark web forum that would constitute illegal child sexual abuse material. This is in addition to the thousands of explicit deepfake images created by Grok at the request of X users of civilians and well-known figures, including the Princess of Wales, cabinet ministers, MPs, and celebrities.
The Telegraph’s report also cites No 10 sources pointing to the full powers of the Online Safety Act, which include fines of billions of pounds or even blocking access to X in Britain. X has around 650 million users worldwide, including 20 million in the United Kingdom alone. Under the Act, British officials have the power to bar access to social media sites that repeatedly fail to take down illegal images such as child abuse material or revenge porn.
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On the other hand, Musk has had numerous complaints about the UK government, criticizing Britain’s Online Safety Act, claiming the law’s purpose is the “suppression of the people”. Musk also recently ordered staff at xAI, his AI business, to loosen the guardrails on Grok. A source told The Telegraph he had told a meeting he was “unhappy about over-censoring.” Musk has not commented on the report of the UK deciding to ban the X platform.