{"id":251848,"date":"2026-01-18T23:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T23:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/251848\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T23:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T23:54:11","slug":"protest-outside-x-offices-in-dublin-over-ai-deepfakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/251848\/","title":{"rendered":"Protest outside X offices in Dublin over AI deepfakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Around 20 people attended a protest outside X\u2019s Dublin offices, calling for action over the use of the AI tool Grok to generate sexually-explicit images.<\/p>\n<p>Demonstrators, led by People Before Profit, called for stronger laws to prevent image-based sexual abuse.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, X said it was disabling the feature in response to widespread backlash.<\/p>\n<p>Former TD Br\u00edd Smith was among those protesting. Speaking on Newstalk, she said: &#8220;It&#8217;s not just a bit of a joke and a bit of a laugh. It has serious consequences, often in the form of people taking their own lives.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The idea that an artificial intelligence apparatus can undress me or you, indeed, or your children and put different clothes on you or show naked forms of you and share that around on social media is just outrageous.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A former content moderator on the Twitter platform, before it became X, said on Newstalk: &#8220;I find it very hard to believe that Elon Musk has the same intention as the previous CEO.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The former employee, who gave her name as Rosanna, said there had been \u201ca drastic shrinking of moderation teams and loosening of safety policies\u201d since Twitter had become X, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/dublin\/2026\/01\/17\/protesters-call-for-criminal-accountability-over-ai-nudes-at-x-headquarters-in-dublin\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Irish Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>She said that across social media, &#8220;we are witnessing the deliberate release of AI features that undermine this principle of safety&#8221;, with this done \u201call in the name of free speech\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"not-prose no-underline\" data-action=\"click\" data-category=\"Read more article clicked\" data-label=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/ireland\/call-to-fast-track-bill-to-criminalise-ai-deepfakes-1849605.html\" data-value=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/ireland\/call-to-fast-track-bill-to-criminalise-ai-deepfakes-1849605.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/90496741-e1767791465691.jpg\" class=\"rounded-sm object-contain bg-transparent z-10 w-full h-full not-prose\" alt=\"Call To Fast Track Bill To Criminalise Ai Deepfakes\" width=\"278\" height=\"156\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        Ireland<\/p>\n<p>Call to fast track Bill to criminalise AI deepfakes<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThousands of sexualised deepfakes of women and children are generated with a single click,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Richard Boyd Barrett, People Before Profit TD, called for garda\u00ed to investigate X.<\/p>\n<p>This comes after the revelation that garda\u00ed are investigating <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/ireland\/irish-police-investigating-200-reports-of-grok-child-abuse-material-1852353.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">200 reports of child abuse material<\/a> on Grok.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, AI Minister Niamh Smyth met with X representatives, with a series of meetings involving the Government, garda\u00ed and regulators to take place in the next few days to establish what legal action can be taken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 20 people attended a protest outside X\u2019s Dublin offices, calling for action over the use of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-251848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251848","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=251848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}