Democratic US senators demand Apple, Google take X and Grok off app stores over sexual images
By Raphael Satter and AJ Vicens
WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Three Democratic U.S. senators are calling on Apple and Alphabet’s Google to remove X and its built-in apps artificial intelligence Chatbot Grok from app stores, citing the dissemination of sexual images of women and minors without their consent on the platform.
In a letter published Friday, senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, and Edward Markey of Massachusetts said Google and Apple “should remove these apps from their app stores until X’s policy violations are remedied.”
X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has been under fire from authorities around the world since last week when Grok began flooding the site with non-consensual AI-generated images of women and children wearing revealing bikinis, see-through underwear or in degrading, violent or sexualized poses.
The senators’ letter, first reported by NBC News, said Google has terms of service that prohibit app makers from “creating, uploading, or distributing content that facilitates the abuse or exploitation 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.
“To turn a blind eye to X’s appalling behavior would make a mockery of your moderation practices,” the letter said.
Google and Apple did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. X referred Reuters to a Jan. 2 post in which the site said it was taking action “against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Exploitation Material.”
X’s parent company, xAI, did not answer specific questions about the letter or “Grok’s apparent output” and only sent its general response, which referred to unspecified “Old Media Lies.”
SENATOR SAYS MUSK PROFITS FROM INDEPENDENT IMAGES
Musk responded to featured people’s AI-altered bikini-clad photos with laughing-crying emojis and posted several times a day about the X’s popularity. At one point, he blamed users for illegal content created by his chatbot, saying: “Anyone who uses Grok to create illegal content will be subject to the same consequences as if they had uploaded illegal content.”
As the pressure mounted on Friday, Musk’s xAI, which operates Grok and owns X, appeared to impose some restrictions on Grok’s public image production. Public requests from X users to digitally strip women down to bikinis were met with a message stating that the image editing functionality was “currently limited to paying subscribers.”
X users could still use the Grok tab to create sexualized images and then send those images to X. The standalone Grok app, which ran separately from X, also still allowed users to create images without a subscription.
Reuters was unable to determine the extent to which the changes prevented the production of non-consensual images.
Wyden said the regulations did not lessen his concern.
“All the changes X has made have caused some of its users to pay for the privilege of producing horrific images in the
(Reporting by Raphael Satter and AJ Vicens; Additional reporting by Jaspreet Singh; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, David Gregorio and Joe Bavier)
