So when will Ken Paxton sue Grok?

This year sure is off to a strong start.

We’re now into the first full week of January, and not only are Grok users still able to manipulate the bot into generating inappropriate images of minors, but many of the offending deepfakes are reportedly still live, even though some Grok enthusiasts have had their accounts suspended. Musk and his supplicants continue to celebrate “record engagement” and blithely promote the generative A.I. bot and its newest update, Grok Imagine, with little to no acknowledgement of the persistent masses of deepfaked pornography and child sexual abuse images. Musk has even encouraged his fans to add Grok to “your friends and family’s phones.” (Whether these friends and family are of appropriate ages or have the stomachs for such deluges of repellent visuals was left unclear.) Independent sites like Copyleaks are now digging into the prompts responsible for the output. Ashley St. Clair, the conservative influencer who claims to have mothered one of Musk’s many children, was also caught up in the deepfake spree and is reportedly considering taking legal action on behalf of herself and other affected users.

Most galling, however, may be the cowardice of the countries that fancy themselves opponents of child sexual abuse material yet have little or nothing to say about Grok’s “undressing.” The U.S. government, with which xAI has a contract, signed a sweeping, controversial bill in May that will soon require social media platforms to immediately take down nonconsensual deepfake pornography (as well as anything “reported” as such); so far, no agencies have commented upon the ongoing Grok incidents. In the United Kingdom, which added yet more liabilities for social platforms that spread nonconsensual sexual material, the ruling ministers have mostly demurred, only mentioning on Monday that they had made “urgent contact” with X. (This is not dissimilar to what happened last summer, when U.K. leaders refused to take any action after Grok went on a streak of “MechaHitler” Nazi rants. Those types of posts are still happening, too, by the way.)

Other nations, including France and India, are demanding answers from X leadership, while the European Commission announced Monday that it condemned Grok’s “spicy mode” generations and was “very seriously looking” into taking further enforcement steps against xAI, in a follow-up to the multimillion-dollar fine it issued to the company last month over violations of the European Union’s Digital Services Act.

But it’s not just that the U.S. and U.K.’s foot-dragging compares unfavorably with these countries’ statements—it’s that both superpowers have made a big show of forcing digital communities to add “safety measures,” from invasive age-verification gates to beefed-up moderation teams, for the ostensible sake of child safety. Yet at this moment, when an app that both governments use has devolved into a web-leading source of A.I.-deepfaked and nonconsensual porn, the Americans and Brits are keeping dangerously mum.

Late last year, U.S. lawmakers at both the state and federal level thought it would be a swell idea to try to fast-track bills that could collectively obliterate freedom of expression online: banning virtual private networks, sunsetting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passing a “Kids Online Safety Act” that conservative activists have already promised to weaponize against online statements of LGBTQ+ support and abortion-rights advocacy. All of it was, naturally, framed as necessary for saving the children from mature and inappropriate detritus—by forcing them away from the net via unsafe collection of identifying information and strict restrictions on any website that primarily features user-generated content (including social networks much, much smaller than Facebook or X). Critics have pointed out, repeatedly, that these laws will do nothing to save underage users from exploitation and will instead criminalize a lot of stuff that isn’t child sexual abuse material.

One would think these lawmakers should know to expect more of this in the coming year. Grok is the same tool, remember, that has generated fake nude “pictures” of Taylor Swift, sexualized teenage TikTok creators, and offered detailed instructions for hunting other users down as well as sexually assaulting them. (Notably, one of Musk’s first moves after purchasing Twitter in 2022 was to sideline advisers who were experts on child sexual abuse imagery.)

Paxton has shown little hesitation in suing adult websites under a new Texas law that has since been upheld by SCOTUS. One could certainly argue that Twitter and Grok don’t count as “porn” sites, but there are now plenty of examples on Twitter because of Grok that would argue otherwise. And this is the most harmful and objectionable stuff out there, which Elon Musk as the owner of Twitter took direct and affirmative steps to make happen. Even just a “cease and desist” letter would be a lot more than what we’re doing now, which is nothing.

I mean, it’s his choice. Paxton’s gonna do what Paxton’s gonna do, and cravenly overlooking the offenses committed by his pals is in his wheelhouse. I’m just saying, this should be added to the long list of things that Nathan Johnson and Joe Jaworski attack him for. For that matter, any Dem running for any office in Texas is welcome to make the same attacks on their opponents, all of whom I’m sure would not like to address questions such as “so what is Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick et al going to do about this?” It’s right there, y’all. Daily Kos has more.

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