{"id":246685,"date":"2026-01-15T20:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/246685\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T20:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:34:14","slug":"x-will-face-full-rigours-of-the-law-says-minister-for-ai-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/246685\/","title":{"rendered":"X will face \u2018full rigours of the law\u2019, says Minister for AI \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social media giant X<\/a> \u201cwill face the full rigours of the law\u201d in Ireland over its Grok nudification tool, the Minister with responsibility for artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI) has told the D\u00e1il.<\/p>\n

Minister of State Niamh Smyth<\/a>, who is meeting X executives on Friday, said the State has sufficient legislation in place to deal with the manipulation of photos.<\/p>\n

The big tech companies have been invited to attend the Oireachtas media committee on February 4th, and Ms Smyth warned \u201cit is critically important that they present themselves in front of our legislators\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said there are three \u201cvery robust laws in place\u201d to deal with Grok and similar apps. \u201cWe have Coco\u2019s law, we have the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act. We also have the online safety Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law makes it very clear to me … it is illegal in this country to create these images. It is illegal in this country to possess these images. It is illegal in this country to disseminate these images. And it is illegal in this country to share these images.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Smyth had earlier in an RT\u00c9 interview said she would be meeting the Attorney General to make sure there are no loopholes in legislation, but in a D\u00e1il debate on AI she told TDs the three laws \u201cas far as I am concerned, make sure that the provision is there, that the law does not allow this to continue\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Smyth welcomed moves by the social media platform to further restrict the controversial Grok<\/a> app, but said she wanted \u201cabsolute confidence\u201d on legal issues before engaging with the company. <\/p>\n

She said she would tell X that what happened \u201cover the last week is illegal and they will face the full rigours of the law here in Ireland in doing so\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we could be any clearer in this country\u201d, these are \u201cthe rules here in Ireland, and I would appeal to any of the companies who are listening to this to obey and obide by these laws\u201d.<\/p>\n

She also appealed to An Garda Sioch\u00e1na to \u201cenforce, enforce, enforce\u201d and for anyone affected by such apps to \u201creport, report, report\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, X said the Grok AI function would no longer allow users to manipulate photos of people<\/a>, so they would appear in revealing clothing, in places where this was illegal. <\/p>\n

X bowed to pressure following deepening controversy<\/a> and safety concerns from UK regulators<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ms Smyth welcomed the \u201ccorrective action\u201d X had taken.<\/p>\n

In a later statement she said she has urged \u201cswift, co-ordinated action with the EU Commission, including a formal investigation and interim measures to protect citizens acrosss all 27 member states\u201d. She said the Commission, which is the EU\u2019s executive arm, has taken investigative steps in relation to X and its obligations under the Digital Services Act. It will now assess the changes to Grok announed by X to ensure they \u201ceffectively protect citizens of the EU\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

It comes as Independent MEP Michael McNamara<\/a>, the new Rapporteur of the European Parliament on a key AI law, said he would use his role to lobby for a bloc-wide ban on so-called \u201cnudification\u201d apps. <\/p>\n

Mr McNamara, the Ireland South MEP, is to be responsible for leading negotiations to simplify the European Union\u2019s AI Bill. <\/p>\n

As it stands the EU bill does not explicitly ban so-called deepfakes \u2013 which are AI-generated images or videos \u2013 but does clarify that such content would need to be clearly labelled as AI-generated. <\/p>\n

Mr McNamara said he would be proposing that \u201cso-called nudification apps be prohibited across all member states by EU law\u201d.<\/p>\n

He told The Irish Times he believed existing legislation did not go far enough.<\/p>\n

Mr McNamara said it was not clear if generating the images with AI was prohibited.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt present the law is far from clear. Whereas the online dissemination of such images may be unlawful, their creation is not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social media giant X \u201cwill face the full rigours of the law\u201d in Ireland over its Grok nudification…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[8938,218,3584,93,5148,4069,61,60,124079,124078,6085,282,606],"class_list":{"0":"post-246685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-alan-kelly","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-coimisiun-na-mean","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-grok","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-michael-mcnamara","17":"tag-niamh-smyth","18":"tag-rte","19":"tag-tv","20":"tag-x"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246685","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=246685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}