French police raided the offices of the X social media platform today as European investigations grew into nonconsensual sexual deepfakes and potential child sexual abuse material (CSAM) generated by X’s Grok AI chatbot.
A statement (in French) from the Paris prosecutor’s office suggested that Grok’s dissemination of Holocaust denial content may also be an issue in the Grok investigations. X owner Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino were issued “summonses for voluntary interviews” on April 20, along with X employees the same week.
Europol, which is assisting in the investigation, said in a statement that the investigation is “in relation to the proliferation of illegal content, notably the production of deepfakes, child sexual abuse material, and content contesting crimes against humanity. … The investigation concerns a range of suspected criminal offences linked to the functioning and use of the platform, including the dissemination of illegal content and other forms of online criminal activity.”
The French action comes amid a growing UK probe into Grok’s use of nonconsensual sexual imagery, and last month the EU launched its own investigation into the allegations.
Meanwhile, a new Reuters report suggests that X’s attempts to curb Grok’s abuses are failing.
“While Grok’s public X account is no longer producing the same flood of sexualized imagery, the Grok chatbot continues to do so when prompted, even after being warned that the subjects were vulnerable or would be humiliated by the pictures,” Reuters wrote in a report published today.
French Prosecutor Calls X Investigation ‘Constructive’
The French prosecutor’s statement said the investigation “is, at this stage, part of a constructive approach, with the objective of ultimately guaranteeing the X platform’s compliance with French laws, insofar as it operates in French territory” (translated from the French).
The investigation initially began in January 2025, the statement said, and “was broadened following other reports denouncing the functioning of Grok on the X platform, which led to the dissemination of Holocaust denial content and sexually explicit deepfakes.”
The investigation concerns seven “criminal offenses,” according to the Paris prosecutor’s statement:
- Complicity in the possession of images of minors of a child pornography nature
- Complicity in the dissemination, offering, or making available of images of minors of a child pornography nature by an organized group
- Violation of the right to image (sexual deepfakes)
- Denial of crimes against humanity (Holocaust denial)
- Fraudulent extraction of data from an automated data processing system by an organized group
- Tampering with the operation of an automated data processing system by an organized group
- Administration of an illicit online platform by an organized group
The Paris prosecutor’s office deleted its X account after announcing the investigation.
Grok Investigations in the UK Grow
In the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced that it was launching an investigation into Grok abuses, on the same day the UK Ofcom communications services regulator said its own authority to investigate chatbots may be limited.
William Malcolm, ICO’s Executive Director for Regulatory Risk & Innovation, said in a statement: “The reports about Grok raise deeply troubling questions about how people’s personal data has been used to generate intimate or sexualised images without their knowledge or consent, and whether the necessary safeguards were put in place to prevent this.”
“Our investigation will assess whether XIUC and X.AI have complied with data protection law in the development and deployment of the Grok services, including the safeguards in place to protect people’s data rights,” Malcolm added. “Where we find obligations have not been met, we will take action to protect the public.”
Ilia Kolochenko, CEO at ImmuniWeb and a cybersecurity law attorney, said in a statement “The patience of regulators is not infinite: similar investigations are already pending even in California, let alone the EU. Moreover, some countries have already temporarily restricted or threatened to restrict access to X’s AI chatbot and more bans are probably coming very soon.”
“Hopefully X will take these alarming signals seriously and urgently implement the necessary security guardrails to prevent misuse and abuse of its AI technology,” Kolochenko added. “Otherwise, X may simply disappear as a company under the snowballing pressure from the authorities and a looming avalanche of individual lawsuits.”
