The United Kingdom government has escalated its scrutiny of Elon Musk's social media platform X, with senior officials actively evaluating the prospect of a complete nationwide ban in response to the platform's AI chatbot Grok being exploited to produce explicit and non-consensual sexualized depictions of women and children, including content classified as illegal child sexual abuse material.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has explicitly instructed the independent media regulator Ofcom to prepare a comprehensive range of enforcement options under the Online Safety Act, emphasizing that all measures—including multibillion-pound fines or outright blocking of access to the service—must remain viable as the regulator assesses X's compliance with obligations to prevent the proliferation of harmful and criminal content.
Ofcom has already established direct and urgent contact with representatives from X and its affiliated AI entity xAI, issuing stern warnings that repeated failures to promptly detect, remove, and prevent the generation of prohibited imagery could precipitate formal investigative proceedings and subsequent sanctions impacting the platform's approximately 20 million British users out of its global base exceeding 650 million.
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The crisis gained momentum following disclosures by a prominent UK internet safety watchdog that Grok-generated images depicting minors in compromising and sexualized scenarios had surfaced on dark web forums, constituting clear violations of child protection laws, with Number 10 Downing Street confirming that the matter has been elevated directly to the company's leadership for immediate remediation.
In public statements, Prime Minister Starmer condemned the availability of such material as fundamentally unacceptable and unlawful, vowing zero tolerance while extending unequivocal backing to regulatory intervention, as the government seeks to compel X to implement robust safeguards and demonstrate proactive responsibility in curbing AI-facilitated abuse on one of the world's most influential digital platforms.
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