Grok is under fire across several countries in the world for its viral “bikini” trend. The European Commission said on Monday that the images of undressed women and children being shared across Elon Musk’s social media site X were unlawful and appalling, joining a growing chorus of officials across the world who have condemned the surge in nonconsensual imagery on the platform.
The condemnation follows reporting, including from Reuters, that X’s built-in artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, was unleashing a flood of on-demand images of women and minors in extremely skimpy clothing – a functionality X has in the past referred to as “spicy mode.”
The European Commission said it was “very aware” of the fact that X was offering a “spicy mode,” spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters.
“This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is appalling. This is disgusting. This is how we see it, and this has no place in Europe,” he said.
In Britain, regulator Ofcom demanded on Monday that X explain how Grok was able to produce undressed images of people and sexualised images of children, and whether it was failing in its legal duty to protect users.
X did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the European Commission’s or Ofcom’s statements. In its last message to Reuters on the matter, X said, “Legacy Media Lies.” Online, Musk has shrugged off the concerns over Grok’s undressing spree, posting laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying emojis in response to public figures edited to look like they were in bikinis.
Ofcom said it was aware of “serious concerns” raised about the feature. “We have made urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK,” a spokesperson said.
Creating or sharing non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material, including AI-generated hyper-realistic sexual imagery, is illegal in Britain. In addition, tech platforms have a duty to take steps to stop British users encountering illegal content and take it down when they become aware of it.
The statements from EU and British officials come after ministers in France reported X to prosecutors and regulators over the disturbing images, saying in a statement on Friday that the “sexual and sexist” content was “manifestly illegal.” Indian officials have also demanded explanations from X over what they described as obscene content.
Even as officials in Europe and Asia demanded answers over Grok’s production of nonconsensual images, the U.S. federal government, which is led by Musk ally Donald Trump, has yet to address the issue. Messages seeking comment from the Federal Communications Commission were not returned. The Federal Trade Commission declined to comment. The Department of Justice did not immediately return an email.
In India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has written a to X (formerly Twitter) over “failure to observe statutory due diligence obligations” under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and other relevant laws and sought an Action Taken Report towards immediate compliance for prevention of hosting, generation and uploading of obscene, nude, indecent and sexually explicit content “through the misuse of AI-based services like ‘Grok’ and xAI’s other services”.
In a letter to the Chief Compliance Officer, X Corp, India Operations, MeitY advised the social media platform to strictly desist from the hosting, displaying, uploading, publication, transmission, storage, sharing of any content that is obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, paedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under any law for the time being in force in any manner whatsoever.
“Failure to observe such due diligence obligations shall result in the loss of the exemption from liability under section 79 of the IT Act, and you shall also be liable for consequential action as provided under any law including the IT Act and BNS,” the letter said.
The letter emphasised that hosting, generation, publication, transmission, sharing, or uploading ofobscene, nude, indecent, sexually explicit, vulgar, paedophilic content or any content that is invasive of another’s privacy including bodily privacy or otherwise unlawful, including through Al-enabled systems and tools, attracts serious penal consequences under multiple statutes,
“It has been reported and represented from time to time, including through public discourse and representations from various parliamentary stakeholders that certain categories of content circulating on your platform may not be in compliance with applicable laws relating to decency and obscenity. It has especially been observed that the service namely “Grok AI” developed by you and integrated and made available on the X platform, is being misused by users to create fake accounts to host, generate, publish or share obscene images or videos of women in a derogatory or vulgar manner in order to indecently denigrate them,” the letter said.
“Importantly, this is not limited to creating of fake accounts but also targets women who host or publish their images or videos, through prompts, image manipulation and synthetic outputs. Such conduct reflects a serious failure of platform-level safeguards and enforcement mechanisms, and amounts to gross misuse of artificial intelligence technologies in violation of applicable laws,” it added.
(With inputs from Reuters, ANI)
Also Read: ‘We’re Not Kidding’: Elon Musk Issues Public Warning Over Illegal Content Created With Grok
Zubair Amin is a Senior Journalist at NewsX with over seven years of experience in reporting and editorial work. He has written for leading national and international publications, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Article 14, Mongabay, News9, among others. His primary focus is on international affairs, with a strong interest in US politics and policy. He also writes on West Asia, Indian polity, and constitutional issues. Zubair tweets at zubaiyr.amin
