EU urges social media platforms to prevent illegal content in wake of uproar over Grok deepfakes
'We don't want users in EU to have possibility to generate illegal content,' says EU Commission spokesperson
BRUSSELS
The European Commission on Friday urged social media platforms to prevent the creation of illegal content following an uproar over the chatbot Grok, part of Elon Musk's US-based X platform, being used to generate non-consensual sexualized AI deepfake images of women and minors.
At a midday press briefing in Brussels, EU Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the bloc's focus is on platform systems rather than individual content removal.
"Paid subscription or non-paid subscription, we don't want to see such images. It's as simple as that," he said, referring to recent changes by X that limit Grok's image generation and editing features to paying users.
He stressed that the EU Commission does not request the removal of specific posts. Instead, it monitors platforms to ensure their design prevents the generation of illegal content, including non-consensual sexual images of women and content involving children.
"When content is illegal, it's for users to flag it to the platform, and then the platform has the obligation to remove content ... We never ask a platform to remove a specific content. What we're asking platforms to do is to make sure that their design, that their systems do not allow the generation of such illegal content," Regnier said.
"We don't want users in the EU to have the possibility to generate illegal content, to take nonconsensual images of women and to create sexual images out of it, or of children," he added.
On Jan. 4, X issued a warning to users not to use Grok to generate illegal content, including child sexual abuse material.
Musk also posted that anyone who asks the AI to generate illegal content would "suffer the same consequences" as if they uploaded it themselves.
The company’s acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner," but people have been using Grok to digitally undress individuals without their consent.
