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It’s not over, Europe’s regulators tell X

The European Union and the United Kingdom are not ready to let Elon Musk’s Grok off the hook for creating non-consensual nude deepfakes.

Social media platform X announced late Wednesday it would stop people from “editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis” following a proliferation of sexualized images created by the Grok artificial intelligence bot that is integrated into X.

These changes apply only to publicly available tweets targeted to the Grok chatbot and not when using the Grok assistant built into X, which is separate from the publicly available platform feed.

The move by X — which included a fresh promise of geoblocking — came in response to mounting pressure and at least two app bans in Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as a formal probe in the U.K.

Yet POLITICO was able to verify that users in Brussels, Paris and London were still able to generate images of people in bikinis on Thursday morning using the integrated AI assistant Grok feature on X, suggesting the move may not meet regulator demands.

Regulators said Thursday the jury is still out as to whether the changes are sufficient.

“We will carefully assess these changes to make sure they effectively protect citizens in the EU,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told POLITICO.

“Should these changes not be effective, the Commission will not hesitate to use the full enforcement toolbox of the [Digital Services Act],” he said.

The Commission, responsible for enforcing the EU’s landmark social media regulation on X, ordered the platform to retain all documents related to the chatbot in response to the scandal.

Yet it has not yet announced any formal investigation since widespread nude deepfakes began to appear via Grok more than two weeks ago, despite strong rhetoric from EU leaders.

The EU has called the nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfakes “illegal” and “disgusting,” with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen describing it as “unthinkable behavior.”

France’s digital minister, Anne Le Hénanff, said in response to the announcement that the pressure from Paris and Brussels is “producing results.”

“Nevertheless, I remain particularly vigilant regarding the proper implementation of the commitments made by X. This restriction measure must be effective for all X users (subscribers and non-subscribers alike) in France,” she said.

The U.K. launched fresh action last week. These changes are a “welcome development” but “our formal investigation remains ongoing,” an Ofcom spokesperson said Thursday.

The platform said Wednesday it will geoblock all nudify image requests in jurisdictions where it’s illegal.

Just hours before the changes to Grok were announced, Elon Musk denied that the chatbot was used to generate illegal content.

Mizy Clifton, Océane Herrero and Emile Marzolf contributed to this report.

LP Staff Writers

Writers at Lord’s Press come from a range of professional backgrounds, including history, diplomacy, heraldry, and public administration. Many publish anonymously or under initials—a practice that reflects the publication’s long-standing emphasis on discretion and editorial objectivity. While they bring expertise in European nobility, protocol, and archival research, their role is not to opine, but to document. Their focus remains on accuracy, historical integrity, and the preservation of events and individuals whose significance might otherwise go unrecorded.

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