Former Labour minister tells Starmer’s government to quit X
A former Labor Cabinet minister has called on the government to break away from social media platform
Louise Haigh’s intervention will put pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to take a stand against the platform run by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
This came as the government said “all options are on the table”, including boycotting the platform; Ministers have backed communications regulator Ofcom’s action after users encouraged Grok, the artificial intelligence built into the platform, to generate images of children in “minimal clothing”.
An internet safety organization said its analysts confirmed the existence of “images of crimes against children aged 11 to 13 that appear to have been created using the (Grok) tool.”
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said the material was shared on a dark web forum by users “bragging about how they used Grok and how easy it was.”
Ms Haigh, who resigned as transport secretary last year after it was revealed she had a previous fraud conviction, said in a post to
“I continued to keep accounts and post occasionally because a critical mass remained on the site, including the government and the journalists we need to communicate with as MPs.
“However, the emerging findings that child sexual exploitation is enabled, if not encouraged, mean it is unreasonable to use the site for another minute.”
He added: “I call on my party and my government to completely distance themselves from X and engage with the public where they can actually participate online and be protected from such illegalities.”
Her intervention came just a day after the Women and Equalities Committee confirmed she had stopped using the social media platform, prompting pressure from Downing Street to call for a boycott.
Committee chair Sarah Owen, who stopped using X in 2024, said she and her colleagues no longer saw fit to use the platform to share their work.
In a letter to Cabinet Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds, Ms Owen said: “It is simply no longer acceptable for the government to continue to exist on such a platform, particularly given the government’s mission to tackle violence against women and girls.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman described what happened with the creation of sexualised images on Grok as a “disgrace” and “completely unacceptable”.
A spokesman for Number 10 added: “No one should have to go through the trouble of seeing intimate deepfakes of themselves online and we will not allow these degrading images to proliferate.
“X needs to deal with this matter urgently and Ofcom has our full support to take enforcement action where firms fail to protect UK users.
“It already has the power to impose fines of up to billions of lira and even suspend access to a site that violates the law.
“All options are on the table when it comes to keeping people safe online.”
“All options are on the table,” the spokesman said when asked whether the government would stop using the app.
A post on the Grok
The Department of Science, Technology and Innovation has been contacted for comment.
