Brussels: European Union (EU) regulators on Monday, January 26, opened a formal investigation into Elon Musk’s social media platform X after his artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok started spewing nonconsensual sexualised deepfake images on the platform.
The scrutiny from Brussels comes after Grok sparked a global backlash by allowing users through its AI image generation and editing capabilities to undress people, putting females in transparent bikinis or revealing clothing. Researchers said some images appeared to include children. Some governments banned the service or issued warnings.
The 27-nation EU’s executive said it was looking into whether X has done enough as required by the bloc’s digital regulations to contain the risks of spreading illegal content such as “manipulated sexually explicit images.”
That includes content that “may amount to child sexual abuse material,” the European Commission said. These risks have now “materialised,” the commission said, exposing the bloc’s citizens to “serious harm.”
Regulators will examine whether Grok is living up to its obligations under the Digital Services Act, the bloc’s wide-ranging rulebook for keeping internet users safe from harmful content and products.
In response to a request for comment, an X spokeswoman directed The Associated Press to an earlier statement that the company remains “committed to making X a safe platform for everyone” and that it has “zero tolerance” for child sexual exploitation, nonconsensual nudity, and unwanted sexual content.
The X statement from January 14 also said it would stop allowing users to depict people in “bikinis, underwear or other revealing attire,” but only in places where it’s illegal.
“Non-consensual sexual deepfakes of women and children are a violent, unacceptable form of degradation,” said Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice-president at the commission.
“With this investigation, we will determine whether X has met its legal obligations under the DSA, or whether it treated rights of European citizens — including those of women and children – as collateral damage of its service,” said Virkkunen, who oversees tech sovereignty, security, and democracy.
The Commission also said on Monday that it’s extending a separate investigation into X over whether the platform has been following the Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) requirements. That probe opened in 2023 and is still ongoing. It has so far resulted in a 120 million euro (then-USD 140 million) fine in December for breaches of the transparency requirements.
