{"id":244947,"date":"2026-01-14T22:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T22:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/244947\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T22:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T22:03:08","slug":"sport-ireland-reviewing-use-of-x-in-light-of-grok-controversy-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/244947\/","title":{"rendered":"Sport Ireland reviewing use of X in light of Grok controversy \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/sport-ireland\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/sport-ireland\/\">Sport Ireland<\/a> is reviewing its use of the social media platform <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/x\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/x\/\">X<\/a> after reports the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/grok\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/grok\/\">Grok<\/a> had been generating illegal images at the request of users.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It follows the decision by Sport England to indefinitely suspend its engagement with X, formerly known as Twitter and owned by Elon Musk, due to what it describes as the \u201cabhorrent outputs\u201d associated with Grok.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cSport Ireland has been monitoring reports that Grok, the AI chatbot based on the social network X, had been generating illegal images at the request of users,\u201d a statement on Wednesday read.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cSport Ireland\u2019s use of the social media platform X is under review.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It follows a post by Sport England on January 8th which stated: \u201cAt Sport England, our mission is to ensure sport and physical activity are safe and inclusive for everyone. To stay true to these values, we are suspending indefinitely our X channel and will be moving our community engagement to other platforms. You can join us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and BlueSky.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Sport England X account remains online as an archive, but will no longer engage with users.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Their decision to leave X was further explained by Sport England chair Chris Boardman, an Olympic gold medallist in cycling and three\u2010time Tour de France stage winner, who has held the position since 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">According to Boardman, X \u201cincreasingly promotes and monetises an environment that is hostile to women and girls\u201d and \u201cpeople must always come before platforms\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cNo matter where you come from, what you earn or who you are, sport should always be a place where everyone feels safe and welcome,\u201d he added. \u201cThose are values worth standing up for. When a space undermines that, walking away is not weakness, it is a responsibility.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe exist to support everyone to be physically active, grounded in equality, dignity and respect. Recent developments on X \u2013 including some abhorrent outputs associated with Grok \u2013 have contributed to the amplification of and worse, normalisation of, misogynistic content. That runs directly counter to what we stand for.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe recognise that some people and organisations believe staying in difficult spaces and challenging harmful narratives from within is the right approach. We respect that view. Reasonable people can disagree.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cFor Sport England, however, stepping away from X is the right decision. It aligns with our values, supports our commitment to women and girls, and allows us to focus our efforts where they can have the greatest positive impact.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sport Ireland is reviewing its use of the social media platform X after reports the artificial intelligence (AI)&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4069,61,60,43,96346,606],"class_list":["post-244947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-grok","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-sport-ireland","tag-x"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}