Jan 9 (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 reveal what it is doing to prevent and rerelocate illegal content.
Grok stated late on Thursday it was restricting image generation and editing to paying subscribers after it stated on January 2 that it was repairing safeguard lapses after isolated cases in which it produced sexualised outputs, including depictions of minors in minimal clothing.
Musk stated earlier on X that anyone utilizing Grok to create 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 extfinished on Thursday a retention order sent to X last year to retain and preserve all internal documents and data related to Grok until the finish of 2026, amid concern over Grok-generated sexualised “undressed” images.
Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom stated on Monday it had built “urgent contact” with X and xAI and would create a swift assessment of whether the service was meeting its legal duties to protect utilizers under the UK’s Online Safety Act framework.
In France, government ministers stated 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 Tuesday to take legal steps, stateing 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 utilizing 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 utilizer prompt.
ASIA
India’s IT Ministest on January 2 sent X a formal notice 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.
Malaysia’s communications regulator MCMC stated on January 3 it would summon X and open an investigation into alleged misutilize of Grok to generate obscene or sexualised “undressing” content, warning it may involve offences under Section 233 of Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.
OCEANIA
Australia’s online-safety regulator eSafety stated on Wednesday it was investigating Grok-generated “digitally undressed” sexualised deepfake images, assessing adult material under its image‑based abutilize scheme and noting current child-related examples it had reviewed did not meet the legal threshold for child sexual abutilize material under Australian law.
(Reporting by Hugo Lhomedet in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)
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