Factbox-Elon Musk’s Grok faces global scrutiny for sexualised AI photos

Jan 12 (Reuters) – Governments and regulators from Europe to Asia have condemned and some have opened inquiries into sexually explicit content generated by Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot Grok on X, putting pressure on the platform ​to show what it is doing to prevent and remove illegal content.

Grok said on Thursday it was restricting ‌image generation and editing to paying subscribers after it said on January 2 that it was fixing safeguard lapses after isolated cases in which it ‌produced sexualised outputs, including depictions of minors in minimal clothing.

Musk said earlier on X that anyone using Grok to make illegal content would suffer the same consequences as if they uploaded illegal content.

Here are some reactions from governments and regulators around the world.

EUROPE

The European Commission extended on Thursday a retention order sent to X last year to retain and preserve all internal documents and data related ⁠to Grok until the end of 2026, ‌amid concern over Grok-generated sexualised “undressed” images.

Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom said on January 5 it had made “urgent contact” with X and xAI and would make a swift assessment of whether the service was ‍meeting its legal duties to protect users under the UK’s Online Safety Act framework.

In France, government ministers said on January 2 they had referred sexually explicit Grok-generated content circulating on X to prosecutors and also alerted French media regulator Arcom to check the platform’s compliance with the ​European Union’s Digital Services Act.

Germany’s media minister Wolfram Weimer called on the European Commission on January 6 to take ‌legal steps, saying EU rules provided tools to tackle illegal content and alleging the problem risked turning into the “industrialisation of sexual harassment”.

Italy’s data protection authority warned on Thursday that using AI tools to create “undressed” deepfake imagery of real people without consent could amount to serious privacy violations and, in some cases, criminal offences.

Swedish political leaders condemned on Thursday Grok-generated sexualised “undressing” content after reporting that imagery involving Sweden’s deputy prime minister was produced from a user prompt.

ASIA

India’s IT Ministry sent X a formal notice ⁠on January 2 over alleged Grok-enabled creation or sharing of obscene sexualised ​images, directing the content to be taken down and requiring a report on ​the actions being taken within 72 hours.

Indonesia’s communications and digital ministry said on Saturday it had blocked access to Grok, a move that digital minister Meutya Hafid said was meant to protect women ‍and children from AI-generated fake pornographic ⁠content, citing Indonesia’s strict anti‑pornography laws.

Malaysia announced a temporary ban on Grok on Sunday, citing “repeated misuse” of the tool to generate “obscene, sexually explicit, indecent, grossly offensive, and non-consensual manipulated images”, including content involving women and minors.

OCEANIA

Australia’s online-safety ⁠regulator eSafety said on January 7 it was investigating Grok-generated “digitally undressed” sexualised deepfake images, assessing adult material under its image‑based abuse scheme and noting current ‌child-related examples it had reviewed did not meet the legal threshold for child sexual abuse material under Australian ‌law.

(Reporting by Hugo Lhomedet in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)