UK PM Keir Starmer’s workplace says transfer to restrict entry to paying subscribers ‘insulting’ to victims and ‘not an answer’.
Printed On 9 Jan 2026
Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok has restricted picture technology on the social media platform X amid growing backlash over its use to create sexualised deepfakes of girls and youngsters.
Grok informed X customers on Friday that picture technology and modifying options had been now accessible solely to paying subscribers.
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The standalone Grok app, which operates individually from X, nonetheless permits customers to generate photos with out a subscription.
The transfer comes after Musk was threatened with fines and several other countries pushed back publicly towards the device that allowed customers to change on-line photos to take away the themes’ garments.
The European Fee stated on Monday that such photos circulating on X had been illegal and appalling.
The UK’s information regulator additionally stated it had requested the platform to clarify the way it was complying with information safety legal guidelines following issues that Grok was producing sexually abusive photos of girls.
On Friday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s workplace known as the transfer to restrict entry to paying subscribers “insulting” to victims and “not an answer”.
“That merely turns an AI characteristic that permits the creation of illegal photos right into a premium service,” a Downing Road spokesperson stated. “It’s insulting the victims of misogyny and sexual violence.”
The EU government, for its half, stated it had “taken word of the current modifications”.
However EU digital affairs spokesperson Thomas Regnier informed reporters, “This doesn’t change our elementary situation, paid subscription or non-paid subscription.”
“We don’t wish to see such photos. It’s so simple as that,” he stated, including, “What we’re asking platforms to do is to guarantee that their design, that their programs don’t enable the technology of such unlawful content material.”
The European Fee has ordered X to retain all inner paperwork and information associated to Grok till the top of 2026 in response to the uproar in regards to the sexualised photos.
France, Malaysia and India have additionally criticised Musk’s platform over the difficulty.
Musk stated final week that anybody utilizing Grok to create unlawful content material would face the identical penalties as importing such materials immediately.
This isn’t the primary time that Grok has been criticised, after the chatbot final yr was slammed for providing anti-Semitic responses to questions from X customers.
In July, Musk’s synthetic intelligence agency xAI disabled Grok’s text replies and deleted posts after the chatbot praised Adolf Hitler and made anti-Semitic remarks.
