{"id":399709,"date":"2026-01-08T12:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T12:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399709\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T12:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T12:30:07","slug":"iwf-finds-sexual-imagery-of-children-which-appears-to-have-been-made-by-grok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399709\/","title":{"rendered":"IWF finds sexual imagery of children which ‘appears to have been’ made by Grok"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) charity says its analysts have discovered “criminal imagery” of girls aged between 11 and 13 which “appears to have been created” using Grok.<\/p>\n

The AI tool is owned by Elon Musk’s firm xAI. It can be accessed either through its website and app, or through the social media platform X.<\/p>\n

The IWF said it found “sexualised and topless imagery of girls” on a “dark web forum” in which users claimed they used Grok to create the imagery.<\/p>\n

The BBC has approached X and xAI for comment.<\/p>\n

The IWF’s Ngaire Alexander told the BBC tools like Grok now risked “bringing sexual AI imagery of children into the mainstream”.<\/p>\n

He said the material would be classified as Category C under UK law – the lowest severity of criminal material.<\/p>\n

But he said the user who uploaded it had then used a different AI tool, not made by xAI, to create a Category A image – the most serious category.<\/p>\n

“We are extremely concerned about the ease and speed with which people can apparently generate photo-realistic child sexual abuse material (CSAM),” he said.<\/p>\n

The charity, which aims to remove child sexual abuse material<\/a> from the internet, operates a hotline where suspected CSAM can be reported, and employs analysts who assess the legality and severity of that material.<\/p>\n

Its analysts found the material by on the dark web – the images were not found on the social media platform X.<\/p>\n

X and xAI were previously contacted by Ofcom, following reports Grok can be used to make “sexualised images of children” and undress women.<\/p>\n

The BBC has seen several examples on the social media platform X of people asking the chatbot to alter real images to make women appear in bikinis without their consent, as well as putting them in sexual situations.<\/p>\n

The IWF said it had received reports of such images on X, however these had not so far been assessed to have met the legal definition of CSAM.<\/p>\n

In a previous statement, X said: “We take action against illegal content on X, including CSAM, by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.<\/p>\n

“Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) charity says its analysts have discovered “criminal imagery” of girls aged between 11…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-399709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}