The European Commission announced on Monday the opening of a new investigation targeting Elon Musk’s social network, X, due to false nude images of minors and women generated by Grok, his artificial intelligence assistant.
Europe will not “tolerate senseless behavior” from digital platforms, such as “false naked images of women and children”, affirmed the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, in a statement to AFP. “Our position is clear: we will not entrust consent and child protection to technological platforms so that they can violate and monetize them,” assured the head of the European executive, adding that “measures have been taken, but we must do more to protect citizens, online and offline”.
This new investigation aims to verify whether the network violated powerful European digital rules which require it to protect users against illegal content.
The European executive has also decided to extend the scope of a first investigation launched in December 2023 against X, still within the framework of its legislation on digital services, the DSA (Digital services act). At issue: a feature allowing users to ask Grok to create fake nude images from real photos of minors or women.
3 million images generated in 11 days
Faced with the outcry raised by the proliferation of such images, procedures have already been launched in several countries, notably in France and the United Kingdom, and access to X has even been suspended or blocked by several states.
After initially limiting access to this functionality, X announced in mid-January a restriction of its AI tool in countries where the creation of such sexual images is illegal.
According to a study published by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an NGO which frequently denounces the practices of X, Grok generated some three million sexualized images of women and children over a period of only 11 days, or 190 images per minute on average.
Another analysis, carried out by the AI Forensics organization, showed that of more than 20,000 images generated by Grok, more than half depicted scantily clad people, of which 81% were women and 2% appeared to be minors.
Alongside the new procedure launched on Monday, the European Commission has also decided to extend the scope of another investigation launched in December 2023 against X, which had already pushed it to impose a fine of 120 million euros on Elon Musk’s network in December.
Risk of angering Trump
The social network had been in the crosshairs of the European Union for several weeks due to this scandal. Brussels took a first step at the beginning of January, by ordering X to keep all its internal documents and data relating to Grok until the end of the year.
With this new procedure targeting
Trump continues to accuse Brussels of targeting American tech champions through its digital legislation. His administration took retaliatory measures at the end of December, imposing sanctions on former commissioner Thierry Breton, architect of the DSA, as well as four other European figures committed to strict regulation of tech and against disinformation.
