Elon Musk has accused the government of being "fascist" after the UK further threatened to ban X over the artificial intelligence tool Grok, which generated sexualized images of women and children. Regarding a chart claiming that the UK has the most people arrested for speaking on social media in the world, Musk posted, "Why is the British government so fascist?" He also said in other posts a few hours ago that the UK wanted to "suppress freedom of speech" and called the country a "prison island."
Third-party analysis shows that X has become one of the hardest hit areas for AI-generated nude images without authorization, and earlier this week alone, this occurred thousands of times per hour.
Britain's watchdog, which notifies law enforcement of online child sexual abuse material, said it had discovered "criminal" images allegedly generated by Grok on the dark web.
The Internet Watch Foundation said "sexualized and topless" images of girls aged 11 to 13 on the dark web met the criteria for law enforcement to take action. xAI operates Grok and social media platform X.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed action earlier this week, demanding "immediate action" from Musk's CEO over the images. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall issued a statement on Friday saying media regulator Ofcom should use its "full legal powers" and warning that if providers refused to comply with UK law, the government could block access to their services within the country.