Daily London
That included the risks of disseminating illegal content, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including what may be child sexual abuse material.
The commission said the risks “seem to have materialised, exposing citizens in the EU to serious harm”.
“Sexual deepfakes of women and children are a violent, unacceptable form of degradation,” Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Henna Virkkunen said.
“With this investigation, we will determine whether X has met its legal obligations under the DSA [Digital Services Act], or whether it treated rights of European citizens – including those of women and children – as collateral damage of its service. “
“eSafety remains concerned about the use of the generative AI system Grok on X to generate content that may sexualise or exploit people, particularly children,” it said, on January 9.
“While the number of reports eSafety has received remains small, eSafety has seen a recent increase from almost none to several reports over the past couple of weeks relating to the use of Grok to generate sexualised or exploitative imagery.
“eSafety will use its powers, including removal notices, where appropriate and where material meets the relevant thresholds defined in the Online Safety Act.”
The commission said it had already taken enforcement action in 2025 over some “nudify” services used to create AI child sexual exploitation material.
The eSafety Commission has not confirmed whether it has received a response from X.
About a week later, X owner Musk said he was aware of “literally zero” naked underage images generated by Grok.
“Obviously, Grok does not spontaneously generate images, it does so only according to user requests,” he said, in a post on X.
“When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state.
“There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.”
It also said it would stop allowing users to depict people in “bikinis, underwear or other revealing attire” but only in places where it’s illegal.
Tech website The Verge has since found it remains “extremely easy to undress women and edit them into sexualised poses using the X and Grok mobile apps or websites”.
The European Commission said its investigation could include sending more requests for information to X, conducting interviews or inspections and imposing interim measures.
