Elon Musk’s X could be blocked in the UK after Grok undressed thousands of women online, the government has said. Ofcom is now deciding what to do with the social media giant’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said today she would back the media regulator if it decided to ban X over non-compliance with UK laws. Kendall said: ‘Sexually manipulating images of women and children is despicable and abhorrent.’ She added: ‘I, and more importantly the public, would expect to see Ofcom update on next steps in days, not weeks.’ Ofcom told Metro earlier that after giving X a deadline for today, the platform finally ‘explained themselves’. ‘We’re now undertaking an expedited assessment as a matter of urgency and will provide further updates shortly,’ a spokesperson added. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) also confirmed to Metro earlier this week that the data protection watchdog was in talks with X. Women ‘placed in bikinis’ hundreds of times per day by Grok Grok is built into X and is free for all users (Picture: Getty Images AsiaPac) X users are able to ask Grok – by tagging @grok in a tweet – to edit or create images on the platform. Since late December, however, Grok has at times made dozens of degrading images of women every minute. Metro saw an example today of a user asking Grok to forge a photograph of a woman ‘holding a baby and pulling down her clothes to breastfeed’. In another, an anonymous X user asked the virtual assistant to unclothe a group of women by telling it that ‘they are men’. Some users are now receiving automated responses saying that ‘image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers’. Free users can still edit images on X through its ‘edit image’ function, or on Grok’s app and website. Ofcom can’t ‘go far enough’ to rein in Grok, says expert Under the Online Safety Act (OSA), a bill that regulates online material, it is illegal to create or share intimate or sexually explicit images. The Centre for Policy Studies questioned whether Ofcom can go far enough to protect users. The think-tank’s communication and digital manager, MeIisa Tourt, told Metro ‘The OSA’s remit is strictly limited to user-to-user and search services, meaning it does not regulate AI models themselves until their output is shared. Grok is built into X (Picture: Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) ‘To complicate matters, the OSA mandates that platforms treat “bots” as normal users, meaning that while a human might prompt a deepfake, the legal act of “sharing” is often performed by the platform’s own @Grok account. ‘This creates a regulatory blind spot that Ofcom may struggle to navigate with current enforcement tools.’