{"id":353634,"date":"2026-01-05T16:59:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T16:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/353634\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T16:59:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T16:59:04","slug":"ofcom-asks-x-about-reports-its-grok-ai-makes-sexualised-images-of-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/353634\/","title":{"rendered":"Ofcom asks X about reports its Grok AI makes sexualised images of children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grok is a free virtual assistant – with some paid for premium features – which responds to X users’ prompts when they tag it in a post.<\/p>\n

Samantha Smith, a journalist who discovered users had used the AI to create pictures of her in a bikini, told the BBC’s PM programme on Friday it had left her feeling “dehumanised and reduced into a sexual stereotype”.<\/p>\n

“While it wasn’t me that was in states of undress, it looked like me and it felt like me and it felt as violating as if someone had actually posted a nude or a bikini picture of me,” she said.<\/p>\n

Under the Online Safety Act<\/a>, Ofcom says it is illegal to create or share intimate or sexually explicit images – including “deepfakes” created with AI – of a person without their consent.<\/p>\n

Tech firms are also expected to take “appropriate steps” to reduce the risks of UK users encountering such content, and take it down “quickly” when made aware of it.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said on Monday it was aware of posts made by Grok “showing explicit sexual content”, as well as “some output generated with childlike images”.<\/p>\n

“This is illegal,” he said, also calling it “appalling” and “disgusting”.<\/p>\n

“This is how we see it, and this has no place in Europe,” he said.<\/p>\n

Regnier said X was “well aware” the EU was “very serious” about enforcing its rules for digital platforms – having handed X a \u20ac120m (\u00a3104m) fine<\/a> in December for breaching its Digital Services Act.<\/p>\n

A Home Office spokesperson said it was legislating to ban nudification tools, and under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tech would “face a prison sentence and substantial fines”.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Chris Vallance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grok is a free virtual assistant – with some paid for premium features – which responds to X…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-353634","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\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}