British minister says X could be banned for deepfakes

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said she would support regulator Ofcom if it blocked access to Elon Musk’s social media site X in the UK for failing to comply with online safety laws.

Ofcom said it was urgently deciding what to do about Grok, X’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, which digitally undressed people without their consent when tagged under images posted on the platform.

X has now restricted use of this imaging feature to those who pay a monthly fee.

But Downing Street said the changes were an ‘insult’ to victims of sexual violence, while a domestic abuse charity called it ‘financial abuse’.

“The sexual manipulation of images of women and children is vile and disgusting,” Kendall said.

She added: “I, and more importantly the public, expect to see an update on Ofcom’s next steps in the coming days rather than weeks.”

She said the Online Safety Act “includes powers to block access to services in the UK if they refuse to comply with UK law. If Ofcom decides to use these powers, we will have our full support.”

The BBC has contacted X for comment.

An Ofcom spokesperson said: “We contacted (X) urgently on Monday and set a deadline of today (Friday) to explain and receive a response.”

“We are currently conducting a rapid assessment based on the urgency of the situation and will provide further updates shortly.”

Ofcom’s powers under the Online Safety Act include the power to seek a court order to prevent third parties from helping X raise funds or accessing them in the UK if the company refuses to do so.

These so-called business disruption measures are still largely untested.

The use of Grok to create non-consensual sexual images has been criticized by politicians on all sides, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer calling it “disgraceful” and “disgusting”.

British reform leader Nigel Farage said this was “horrible in every way” and that “we need to go further” than the changes made to Grok by X on Friday morning.

But he said the idea of ​​banning X in the UK was “frankly appalling” and an attack on freedom of expression.

The Liberal Democrats have called for access to X to be temporarily restricted in the UK while the social media site is investigated.

Grok is a free tool that allows users to request specific responses by tagging posts directly or replying under other users’ posts.

The tool can still edit images in

We have received many requests to edit images of women in bikinis or skimpy clothing. The BBC said those who received the requests made the BBC feel “humiliated” and “dehumanized”.

But as of Friday morning, Grok told users who asked to change images uploaded to

Some posts on the platform seen by BBC News suggest that only posts with a blue check “verified” mark, limited to X’s paid subscriber tiers, were able to successfully request Grok to edit images.

Dr Daisy Dixon, a philosophy lecturer at Cardiff University and a female

“Grok needs to completely redesign and embed ethical guardrails to prevent something like this from happening again,” she told the BBC.

“Elon Musk also needs to acknowledge this for what it is: another example of gender-based violation.”

“There is no way to undo the damage that has been done,” said Hannah Swirsky, policy director at the Internet Watch Foundation.

“We don’t think it’s enough to simply restrict access to tools that shouldn’t have the ability to produce the kinds of images we’ve seen recently,” she said.

The charity previously said analysts had discovered “incriminating images” of girls aged 11 to 13 “which appear to have been created” using Grok.

Labor MPs are increasingly frustrated with the party’s use of X to convey political messages.

Leaked messages from the parliamentary Labor Party’s WhatsApp group, which was used to post notices for backbench Labor MPs to share on social media, show that at least 13 Labor MPs have called on the government to stop using the platform.

The message, first reported by Politics Home and seen by BBC News, urges Labor lawmakers to “take a stand” and “get our message elsewhere” in the government.

“Our government needs to start using a different platform, as some of us have been asking since Musk became a non-X fascist,” one lawmaker said.

Another said: “Having images of children (and women) in government communications from X causes harm to children.”

On Friday morning, Downing Street suggested the government would continue to post on X.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson told reporters that Grok’s changes to the way it responds to user requests to edit images on its platform show that X can “move quickly when it wants to.”

They said, “It is very clear that X must act and that it must act now.”

“It is time for