Amid the scandal of Grok allowing the creation of sexualised images of children, the release of the Epstein files (in which he is mentioned), and the seemingly endless public spats he continues to have on X, trouble does not appear to be letting up for Elon Musk.
Since the start of February, Paris prosecutor’s cyber-crime unit raided X’s offices in the French capital “as part of an investigation into suspected offences including unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).” Both Musk and Linda Yaccarino, the former CEO of X, are expected to be summoned to a hearing scheduled for April.
France is not the only country scrutinising Musk’s companies. The United Kingdom has also turned its attention to X and, more specifically, to its AI tool. “The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced a probe into Musk’s AI tool, Grok,” with plans to investigate its capacity to generate sexualised images and videos of women and children without consent. Elsewhere, governments are scrambling to work out how to address a rapidly escalating problem. While most Western countries already ban the sharing of non-consensual nude images of women and impose a blanket prohibition on any sexualised content involving those under the age of 18, much of the existing legislation simply does not account for deepfakes.
This is a gap that governments must urgently address. We already know that deepfakes have the potential to seriously undermine the safety and security of women online. Even before the emergence of AI-generated deepfakes, “one in three women report having experienced online abuse.” With this new technology, the situation was always likely to deteriorate – and evidence suggests that it already has. For instance, “an analysis by AI Forensics of images generated by Grok found 53% contained individuals in minimal attire of which 81% presented as women and 2% depicted persons appearing to be 18 years or younger.”
So far, governments have largely confined themselves to investigations, with a handful attempting to ban Grok outright – an approach that is unlikely to be effective in practice given the ease of using VPNs. The UK, however, has signalled a more robust response. “The Government has publicly committed to criminalizing the creation of sexually explicit deepfake images and the installation of equipment intended to facilitate such offences.”
Unsurprisingly, these policy moves in both the UK and France have been framed by Mr Musk and X as politically motivated attacks. He has repeatedly characterised government action as an attempt to restrict free speech and to target him on ideological grounds, rather than as a legitimate effort to address harm.
Yet there are several realities Mr Musk appears unwilling to acknowledge. First, the world is not the United States of America. The legal and philosophical foundations of free speech in Europe differ significantly from those in the US. Even if the sharing of deepfake sexualised images of women and children were to fall under free speech protections in the United States – a deeply contentious claim – it clearly does not in Europe.
Second, even in principle, the creation and dissemination of such material should not be understood as an expression of free speech. Even in the US, freedom of expression has limits: you cannot shout “Fire” in a crowded theatre as a prank and then claim constitutional protection. Likewise, you cannot create and distribute non-consensual sexualised images of women and children and expect a free speech defence to absolve you of responsibility. At a philosophical level, individual freedoms are typically constrained where they cause substantial harm to others. That harm should not be trivial—such as mere offence—but significant and tangible. The circulation of these images constitutes precisely that kind of harm for women and children alike.
Going forward, governments need to take this issue seriously. They must limit the ability of Grok—and other AI tools—to generate such content, criminalise its creation and distribution, and prosecute those who engage in these practices. As for Mr Musk, he should take responsibility for his platform and its technologies, restrict Grok’s capacity to produce harmful material, and prioritise the safety and dignity of his female users and their children.
