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The European Union connected Monday (January 26, 2026) deed Elon Musk's X with an probe implicit AI chatbot Grok's procreation of sexualised deepfake images of women and minors, successful the latest measurement of an planetary backlash against the tool.
Grok faces an outcry aft it emerged that users could sexualise images of women and children utilizing elemental substance prompts specified arsenic "put her successful a bikini" oregon "remove her clothes".
"In Europe, we volition not tolerate unthinkable behaviour, specified arsenic integer undressing of women and children," said European Commission main Ursula von der Leyen.
"It is elemental — we volition not manus implicit consent and kid extortion to tech companies to interruption and monetise. The harm caused by amerciable images is precise real," she said successful a connection to AFP.
EU tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen said the probe would "determine whether X has met its ineligible obligations" nether the bloc's Digital Services Act (DSA), which is designed to constabulary net giants.
She said the rights of women and children successful the EU should not beryllium "collateral damage" of X's services.
Brussels said it was investigating whether X had decently mitigated "risks related to the dissemination of amerciable contented successful the EU, specified arsenic manipulated sexually explicit images, including contented that whitethorn magnitude to kid intersexual maltreatment material".
Three cardinal images
According to probe published Thursday (January 22, 2026) by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit watchdog, Grok generated an estimated 3 cardinal sexualised images of women and children successful a substance of days.
As portion of the caller probe, the EU said it was widening an existing probe into X aimed astatine tackling the dispersed of amerciable contented and accusation manipulation.
Mr. Musk's societal media platform, formerly known arsenic Twitter, has been the people of an probe since December 2023 nether the EU's integer contented rules.
Brussels slapped a €120-million ($140-million) good connected X successful December for violating the transparency obligations of the DSA, triggering aggravated reactions from U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.
The breaches included the deceptive plan of its "blue checkmark" for supposedly verified accounts, and nonaccomplishment to supply entree to nationalist information for researchers.
The EU has insisted it volition enforce its rules contempt unit from Washington.
The quality implicit tech regularisation comes arsenic the bloc has grappled with the Trump medication connected aggregate different fronts — from the Ukraine warfare to commercialized to Greenland.
