What Will It Take For The Government To Do Something About X?

Outrage over X’s AI bot has been mounting after the social media bot started generating images of undressed children – but what is the government doing about it?

The built-in system, Grok, can produce AI images at the request of any user for free. According to recent posts, there are no limits on what it is willing to produce.

The bot has repeatedly produced multiple images of children – and adults – without clothes in recent weeks, causing alarm across the internet.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said its analysts have unearthed “criminal imagery” of girls aged between 11 and 13 on X which “appear to have been created” using Grok.

It’s the latest shocking development from the platform which has been criticised for amplifying far-right content in recent years.

Regulator Ofcom confirmed on Monday that it had made “urgent contact” with Elon Musk’s company xAI, and it would be investigating further.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has also contacted the firm to check if X is complying with UK data protection laws.

Musk posted on X, saying: “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”

Prime minister Keir Starmer weighed in personally on Thursday, telling Bauer Media: “It’s disgraceful. It’s disgusting.

“It’s not to be tolerated. X has got to get a grip on this. Ofcom have our full support to take action in relation to this.

“We’re not going to tolerate it. I’ve asked for all options to be on the table. It’s disgusting. X need to get their act together and take action on this.”

But what does “action” mean?

As Lib Dem peer Mark Pack noted, most government departmental websites encourage the public to follow them on X, relying on the social media giant to help them reach voters.

When questioned over Grok on Wednesday, the PM’s spokesperson said: “X needs to deal with this urgently and Ofcom has our full backing, to take enforcement action wherever firms are failing to protect UK users.

“It already has the power to issue fines of up to billions of pounds and even stop access to a site that is violating the law.”

When asked if the government would stop using X itself, Downing Street said: “All options are on the table. And the creation of these images are abhorrent and abuse.”

The government did make cyberflashing a priority offence under the Online Safety Act on Wednesday.

That means all platforms have to assess the risk of cyber-flashing and make sure they are proactively taking steps to prevent it in the first place.

Platforms also have to build this approach into their products.

Those that fail to comply with these new rules could face fines of up to 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue, or have their services blocked in the UK.

Speaking to HuffPost UK, online safety minister Kanishka Narayan said this was a “really significant step” to address the wider issue – and pointed out there are sanctions in the law against platforms already.

“There is a broad sense of acceptance right across the industry that this is the right thing to do,” he claimed, adding that “every company” in scope of the Online Safety Act has been “engaged with” while developing the law.

But, women who have discovered Grok had created sexualised images of them told the BBC the social media platform has refused to tack accountability when they report such images.

When asked what the government will do if there’s no response from X over the AI images, Narayan said the deepfakes are “completely unacceptable”.

He added: “Ofcom is carrying out an urgent investigation to assess the compliance of the platform with the law.

“I’m expecting that that investigation will be not just prompt, but robust, and there are significant sanctions available to Ofcom through the Online Safety Act.”

Pressed further on when the public could expect the watchdog’s probe to come out, the minister said: “I’m not going to commit them to a false timeline.”

He added: “I want the enforcement and the investigation to be robust. I want it to be evidence based, and I wanted to make sure that it stamps out this sort of behavior in the future.”

Asked if the government could reduce wider access to X, he said: “Like with any enforcement of this sort, I’m not going to preempt any of the outcomes.”

But plenty of critics want the government to take more immediate action and drop off the platform altogether.

Former cabinet minister Louise Haigh – who now sits as a backbencher – said on Thursday that it was “unconscionable to use the site for another minute”.

She said: “I call on my party and my government to remove themselves entirely from X and communicate with the public where they actually participate online and can be protected from such illegality.”

The cross-party equalities and women committee of MPs also announced on Wednesday it would no longer be using X.

In a letter to the government, party chair Sarah Owen said: “The committee heard at the end of last year on inquiries about community cohesion, that X posts regularly break UK law on hate speech.

“In recent days, X and XAI have allowed the creation and sharing of AI deepfakes, non-consensual intimate imagery, and child sexual abuse material, all areas identified as online violence against women and girls by our committee.

“We do not view it as appropriate to use such a platform to share our work.

“I hope that the government, Ofcom and relevant law enforcement agencies work quickly to make X immediately abide by UK law on online safety and non-consensual intimate image abuse, to be held to account for its failures and if it refuses to abide by our laws, it must be appropriately sanctioned.”

This is an issue the general public is united on. YouGov pollsters found 96% say AI tools should not be allowed to generate “undressed” images of children, while 87% said the same regarding images of adults.

Tory leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch has also urged Musk to do more to address the sexualised images on X.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said he is “worried” about the deepfakes too – but did not actually say he would stop taking payments from X as a subscribed member of the platform.

The spokesman for tech sovereignty at the European Commission expressed his fury about the incident too, saying: “We don’t want this in the European Union… it’s appalling, it’s disgusting. The Wild West is over in Europe.

“All companies have the obligation to put their own house in order – and this starts by being responsible and removing illegal content that is being generated by your AI tool.”

But what power does the government have, when X’s CEO, the richest man is the world, Elon Musk, is known to be close to the White House as a former Trump adviser?

Narayan told HuffPost UK: “Even the American president has said very clearly that child sexual abuse and significant violence against women and girls, including online abuse, is completely unacceptable in the US, and it is unacceptable here in the UK for us, and so we have a shared agenda on this.

“The second thing to say is that online harms policy is a sovereign area of policy for the UK.

“We make our judgment based on what the British public tells us is the right thing to do.”

He added that the government have been working with international allies on a “series of online safety areas” and sharing good practice – especially if it ends up being “an international context of non-compliance”.

This is not one that will go away anytime soon, though.

As Marcus Johnstone of PCD Solicitors told HuffPost UK: “This is a massive phenomena that is only going to get worse as the capability and accessibility of AI grows.”

He added: “Having spent time on many of these cases, I can tell you that getting involved can have all sorts of horrible unintended consequences.”

Will the government act fast enough to stymie this horrific phenomenon before it spreads too far?