Author: Raphael Satter and AJ Vicens
WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Three U.S. Democratic senators called on Apple and Alphabet’s Google to remove X and its built-in artificial intelligence chatbot Grok from their app stores, citing the presence of non-consensual pornographic images of women and minors on the platform.
In a letter published on Friday, Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico and Edward Markey of Massachusetts said Google and Apple “must remove these apps from the App Store until X’s policy violations are resolved.”
X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has been criticized by officials around the world since last week after Grok began flooding the site with non-consensual, AI-generated images of women and children wearing revealing bikinis, see-through underwear, or posing in degrading, violent or sexual poses.
The senators’ letter, first reported by NBC News, states that Google’s terms of service prohibit app makers from “creating, uploading, or distributing content that facilitates the exploitation or abuse of children.” They said Apple’s terms of service prohibit “sexual or pornographic material.”
The senators noted that in the past, both tech giants have moved quickly to remove offending apps from their platforms.
“Turn a blind eye to X’s egregious behavior and expose your moderation practices to ridicule,” the letter read.
Google and Apple did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. X cited a Jan. 2 post to Reuters in which it said the site was taking action “in response to illegal content on X, including child sexual abuse material.”
X’s parent company, xAI, did not respond to specific questions about the letter or ‌Grok’s explicit output, sending only a generic response that cited unspecified “legacy media lies.”
Senators say Musk profited from indecent images
Musk uses AI-edited photos of celebrities in bikinis to create laughing-crying emojis and posts about X’s popularity multiple times a day. At one point, he blamed users for illegal content generated by the chatbot, saying: “Anyone who uses Grok to create illegal content will suffer the same consequences as uploading illegal content.”
As pressure intensified on Friday, Musk’s xAI, which operates Grok and owns X, appeared to be imposing some restrictions on Grok’s public profile. User X made a public request to digitally strip women to bikinis, but received a message saying the image editing feature was “currently limited to paid subscribers.”
X users will still be able to use the Grok tab to create sexy images and then post the images to X. The standalone Grok application (which runs separately from X) also still allows users to generate images without a subscription.
Reuters could not determine how much, if any, the changes have curbed the production of non-consensual images.
Wyden said the adjustments did not alleviate his concerns.
“All X has changed is making some users pay for the privilege of making horrific images on the X app while Musk profits from child abuse,” he wrote in an email.
(Reporting by Raphael Satter and AJ Vicens; Additional reporting by Jaspreet Singh; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, David Gregorio and Joe Bavier)
