Green Party slams X for allowing sex abuse images of children to be used
Sarah Slater
X must be held “accountable for the creation and distribution of child pornography and revenge porn,” a Green Party spokesperson is warning, following revelations that the platform was allowing sex abuse images of children to be used.
In light of the revelation that Grok, the X AI chatbot, has been responding to user prompts to remove the clothing from images of women and to create "sexualised images of children" to further post them on X, Green Party Media and Justice spokespersons have called on state regulators and enforcement to act.
Grok AI continues to be shared on Elon Musk’s X, despite the platform’s commitment to suspend users who generate them.
Ofcom, the UK’s communication’s watchdog said on Monday that it had made “urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK”.
The watchdog added that it would assess whether an investigation is necessary based on the company’s response.
The trend, which went viral over the New Year period, has prompted the European Commission to say that it was “very seriously” looking into complaints that Grok was being used to generate and disseminate sexually explicit childlike images.
Councillor Hazel Chu, the party’s spokesperson for media, said that social media companies have “repeatedly shown complete disdain for the consequences of their actions and their manipulations”.
Cllr added that Chu Coimisiún na Meán, the regulator of broadcasting and online media in Ireland, must “step up and act”.
She pointed out that the regulator was established to provide some regulation over these companies, to protect vulnerable users and “should use its powers to do just that. This is a potential criminal breach that warrants immediate action.”
The party’s spokesperson of Justice, councillor Patrick Costello outlined that there are “serious questions to be asked here in terms of Coco’s law, child pornography legislation, and X’s liability for this harm.”
“At the very least gardaí should be investigating X for breaching the law and holding the company and its board responsible,” he continued.
