British watchdog opens Grok AI illegal-content probe
Britain’s online-safety watchdog has opened a formal investigation into social-media platform X under the country’s Online Safety Act.
Ofcom said that the probe would determine whether X had complied with its duties to protect people from illegal content.
The regulator described reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share undressed images of people as “deeply concerning”.
Such images, it said, could amount to intimate-image abuse or pornography, while sexualised images of children could amount to child sexual-abuse material (CSAM).
Last week, Ireland’s online-safety regulator Coimisiún na Meán (CnaM) said that it was engaging with the European Commission on the Grok reports.
Legal obligations
Ofcom said that it contacted X a week ago, setting it a deadline of 9 January for it to explain what steps it had taken to comply with its duties to protect its users in Britain.
It added that the company had responded by the deadline.
The Ofcom investigation will cover several areas – including whether X has failed to comply with its legal obligations to assess the risk of people in Britain seeing content that was illegal in the country, and to carry out an updated risk assessment before making any significant changes to its service.
The probe will also examine whether X has taken appropriate steps to prevent people from ‘priority’ illegal content – including non-consensual intimate images and CSAM – and whether it has taken down illegal content swiftly.