UK 'won't back down' in row with Elon Musk's X over Grok sex images, says PM

Elon Musk's X is acting to comply with UK safety laws and the government "won't back down", Sir Keir Starmer has said.

The prime minister told PMQs that the nonconsensual sex images produced by the platform's Grok AI tool are "disgusting" and "shameful" .

Politics Live: Elon Musk is complying with UK law in relation to Grok image abuse

He added that X's decision to turn its AI image editing tool into a premium service was "horrific" and ministers are "absolutely determined to take action".

Responding to a question from Labour MP Emily Darlington, Sir Keir said: "I have been informed this morning that X is acting to ensure full compliance with UK law.

"If so, that is welcome, but we're not going to back down, and they must act.

"We will take the necessary measures. We will strengthen existing laws and prepare for legislation if it needs to go further, and Ofcom will continue its independent investigation."

Read more: Everything you need to know about Grok controversy

After the prime minister's comments, Mr Musk wrote on X: "I not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.

"Obviously, Grok does not spontaneously generate images, it does so only according to user requests. When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state.

"There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately."

In a second post, he wrote: "History will not be kind to Starmer."

He was sharing a post by Reform's head of policy Zia Yusuf that said the PM was "now coming after your end-to-end encrypted messaging apps like Whatsapp and iMessage".

Ofcom, the media regulator, launched an investigation into X on Monday following mounting concerns over reports Grok was allowing users to manipulate images of women and children to sexualise them.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said the watchdog would have ministers' full support to take action against X, including effectively banning the platform in the UK, if the company did not make changes.

She condemned the platform's decision to limit some use of Grok's image generating function to X's paying subscribers, saying the platform was "monetising abuse".

And Ms Kendall said legislation making it a criminal offence to create or request the creation of non-consensual intimate images would come into force this week following the Grok outcry.

Mr Musk, the site's billionaire owner, had initially claimed the threats were part of an effort to censor X.

Sir Keir also called it “astonishing” that Reform UK defended Mr Musk on the issue.

"I said the images are disgusting, their position is disgusting on this. This is weaponising images of women and children that should never be made."

Reform UK's leader Nigel Farage has called the images being produced by Grok "horrible in every way" but said that banning X would infringe on free speech.

Ofcom's powers fall under the Online Safety Act, which states that online platforms have to make sure they're not hosting illegal content.

If X is found to not comply with the Online Safety Act, Ofcom can issue a fine of up to 10% of its worldwide revenue or £18m, and if that is not enough, can go as far as getting a court approval to block the site.

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