{"id":417923,"date":"2026-01-20T03:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/417923\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T03:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:24:09","slug":"for-these-women-groks-sexualized-images-are-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/417923\/","title":{"rendered":"For These Women, Grok’s Sexualized Images Are Personal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn a recent Saturday afternoon, Kendall Mayes was mindlessly scrolling on X when she noticed an unsettling trend surface on her feed. Users were prompting Grok<\/a>, the platform\u2019s built-in AI feature, to \u201cnudify\u201d women\u2019s images. Mayes, a 25-year-old media professional from Texas who uses X to post photos with her friends and keep up with news, didn\u2019t think it would happen to her \u2014 until it did.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPut her in a tight clear transparent bikini,\u201d an X user ordered the bot under a photo that Mayes posted from when she was 20. Grok<\/a> complied, replacing her white shirt with a clear bikini top. The waistband of her jeans and black belt dissolved into thin, translucent strings. The see-through top made the upper half of her body look realistically naked.<\/p>\n

\n\tHiding behind an anonymous profile, the user\u2019s page was filled with similar images of women, digitally and nonconsensually altered and sexualized. Mayes wanted to cuss the faceless user out, but decided to simply block the account. She hoped that would be the end of it. Soon, however, her comments became littered with more images of herself in clear bikinis and skin-tight latex bodysuits. Mayes says that all of the requests came from anonymous profiles that also targeted other women. Though some users have had their accounts suspended, as of publication, some of the images of Mayes are still up on X.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe realistic nature of the images spooked her. The edits weren\u2019t obviously exaggerated or cartoonish. In our call, Mayes repeated, in shock, that the image edits closely resembled her body, down to the dip of her collarbone to the proportions of her chest and waist. \u201cTruth to be told, on social media, I said, \u2018This is not me,\u2019\u201d she admits. \u201cBut, my mind is like, \u2018This is not too far from my body.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMayes was not alone. By the first week of the new year, Grok\u2019s \u201cnudification\u201d loophole had gone viral. Every minute, users prompted Grok to \u201cundress\u201d images of women, and even minors<\/a>. Common requests included \u201cmake her naked,\u201d \u201cmake her turn around,\u201d and \u201cmake her fat.\u201d Users got crafty with the loophole, asking Grok to generate images of women in \u201cclear bikinis\u201d to get as close to fully nude images as possible. In one instance reviewed by Rolling Stone, a user prompted Grok to turn a woman\u2019s body into a \u201ccadaver on the table in a morgue\u201d undergoing an autopsy. Grok complied.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter owner Elon Musk<\/a> initially responded to the trend with laughing emojis, xAI<\/a> said it had updated Grok\u2019s restrictions, limiting the image generation feature to paying subscribers. Musk claimed<\/a> he was \u201cnot aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok.\u201d In another reply to an X post<\/a>, he stated that \u201canyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.\u201d (A request for comment to xAI received an automated response.) Many existing image edits, however, remain online.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLast week, gender justice group UltraViolet published an open letter<\/a> co-signed by 28 civil society organizations calling on Apple and Google to kick Grok and X off app stores.\u00a0(Earlier this month<\/a>, Democratic senators also called for the apps to be taken down.) <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis content is not just horrific and humiliating and abusive, but it\u2019s also in violation of Apple and Google\u2019s stated policy guidelines,\u201d says Jenna Sherman, UltraViolet\u2019s campaign director.<\/p>\n

\n\tUpward of 7,000 sexualized images were being generated per hour by Grok over a 24-hour period, according to researchers cited by Bloomberg<\/a>, which Sherman calls \u201ctotally unprecedented.\u201d Sherman argues that xAI\u2019s restriction of Grok to paid users is an inadequate response. \u201cIf anything, they\u2019re just now monetizing this abuse,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\t\t\u201cIt almost looks like it could be my body\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the past, X was Mayes\u2019 \u201cfun\u201d corner of social media \u2014 an app where she could freely express herself. But as harassment and bullying have become fixtures of the platform, she is considering leaving the app. She has stopped uploading images of herself. She mulls over what her employer or colleagues might think if they were to find the explicit images.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s something I would just never hope on anyone,\u201d Mayes says. \u201cEven my enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEmma, a content creator, was at the grocery store when she saw the notifications of people asking Grok to undress her images. Most of the time, she posts ASMR videos whispering into microphones and tapping her nails against fidget toys, producing noises meant to send a tingle down your spine. The 21-year-old, known online as Emma\u2019s Myspace, and who asked to be only identified by her first name, has cultivated 1.2 million followers on TikTok alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNumbness washed over Emma when the images finally loaded on her timeline. A selfie of her holding a cat had been transformed into a nude. The cat was removed from the photo, Emma says, and her upper body was made naked.<\/p>\n

\n\tEmma immediately made her account private and reported the images. In an email response reviewed by Rolling Stone, X User Support asked her to upload an image of her government-issued ID so they could look into the report, but Emma responded that she didn\u2019t feel comfortable doing so. In some instances, Ben Winters, director of AI and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, says uploading such documentation is a necessary step when filing social media reports. \u201cBut when the platform repeatedly does everything they can to not earn your trust,\u201d he says, \u201cthat\u2019s not an acceptable outcome.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEmma has been targeted by sexualized deepfakes<\/a> in the past. Because of this, she\u2019s forced to be meticulous about the outfits she wears in the content she posts online, favoring baggy hoodies over low-cut tops. But no deepfake she has encountered in the past has looked as lifelike as the images Grok was able to generate. \u201cThis new wave is too realistic,\u201d Emma says. \u201cLike, it almost looks like it could be my body.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\u201cHanding them a loaded gun\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tLast week, Emma took a break from her usual content to post a 10-minute video warning her followers about her experience. \u201cWomen are being asked to give up their bodies whenever they post a photo of themselves now,\u201d Emma says. \u201cAnything they post now has the ability to be undressed, in any way a person wants, and they can do whatever they want with that photo of you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSupport poured in, but so did further harassment. On Reddit, users tried to track down and spread the images of Emma. In our call, she checked to see if some of the image edits she was aware of were still up on X. They were. \u201cOh, my God,\u201d she says, letting out a defeated sigh. \u201cIt has 15,000 views. Oh, that\u2019s so sad.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to Megan Cutter, chief of victim services for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, this is one of the biggest challenges for survivors of digital sexual abuse. \u201cOnce the image is created, even if it\u2019s taken down from the place where it was initially posted, it could have been screenshotted, downloaded, shared,\u201d Cutter says. \u201cThat\u2019s a really complex thing for people to grapple with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile it might seem counterintuitive, Cutter recommends survivors screenshot and preserve evidence of the images to help law enforcement and platforms take action. Survivors can file reports on StopNCII.org<\/a>, a free Revenge Porn Hotline tool that helps detect and remove nonconsensual intimate images, or NCII.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not that abuse is new; it\u2019s not that sexual violence is new,\u201d Cutter says. \u201cIt\u2019s that this is a new tool, and it allows for proliferation at a scale that I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve seen before, and that I\u2019m not sure we\u2019re prepared to navigate as a society.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Tuesday, Senate lawmakers passed<\/a> the Defiance Act, a bill that would allow victims of nonconsensual sexual deepfakes to sue for civil damages. (It now heads to the House for a vote.) California\u2019s attorney general also launched an investigation<\/a> into Grok, following other countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to a 2024 report<\/a> by U.K.-based nonprofit Internet Matters, an estimated 99 percent of nude deepfakes are of women and girls. \u201cA lot of the \u2018nudify\u2019 apps are these small things that pop up, and are easily sort of smacked down and easily vilified [by] everybody,\u201d Winters says. Last year, Meta sued<\/a> the maker of CrushAI, a platform capable of creating nude deepfakes, alleging that it violated long-standing rules. In 2024, Apple removed<\/a> three generative AI apps being used to make nude deepfakes following an investigation by 404 Media. Winters says that Grok and X appear to be facing \u201cincomplete\u201d backlash, in part because the platform is not explicitly marketed as a \u201cnudifying\u201d app, and because Musk is \u201cextraordinarily powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is less willingness by regulators, by advertisers, by other people to cross him,\u201d Winters says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tThat reluctance only heightens the risks of Grok\u2019s \u201cnudifying\u201d capabilities. \u201cWhen one company is able to do something and is not held fully accountable for it,\u201d Winters says, \u201cit sends a signal to other Big Tech giants that they can do the next thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSitting in her home in Texas, Emma feels deflated that any number of image edits are still floating around the internet. She worries that trolls will send the images to her sponsors, which could hurt the professional relationships she relies on. She\u2019s heard the argument that the people who are prompting Grok to create illegal content should be held accountable instead of the tool, but she doesn\u2019t completely buy it. \u201cWe\u2019re, like, handing them a loaded gun for free and saying, \u2018please feel free to do whatever you want,\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a recent Saturday afternoon, Kendall Mayes was mindlessly scrolling on X when she noticed an unsettling trend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,95802,11,641,74,4119],"class_list":["post-417923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-deepfakes","tag-elon-musk","tag-grok","tag-technology","tag-xai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}