{"id":23857,"date":"2026-02-17T08:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T06:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/ireland-opens-probe-into-musks-grok-ai-over-sexualised-images\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:36","slug":"ireland-opens-probe-into-musks-grok-ai-over-sexualised-images","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/ireland-opens-probe-into-musks-grok-ai-over-sexualised-images\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland opens probe into Musk&#8217;s Grok AI over sexualised images"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The DPC is the lead European Union (EU) regulator for X because the United States (US) company&#8217;s European Union operations are based in Ireland. It can levy fines of up to 4% of a company&#8217;s global revenue under the bloc&#8217;s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_elementtoproof\">The decision to begin the inquiry was notified to X on Monday, the DPC said in a statement and its purpose was to determine whether X had complied with its obligations under GDPR with regard to the personal data processed. Grok flooded X last month with AI-altered, near-nude images of real people in response to user requests, triggering widespread global outrage and investigations. X announced curbs to stop Grok&#8217;s account on the platform from producing such images, but the Grok chatbot continued to do so when prompted,\u00a0<i>Reuters\u00a0<\/i>found earlier this month.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_elementtoproof\">US President Donald Trump and other members of his administration have criticised EU regulation of US tech companies and described fines imposed on them by the 27-member bloc as a form of taxation. X&#8217;s owner, Elon Musk, who is the world&#8217;s richest man, has also expressed his objections to EU regulations, mainly those imposed directly by Brussels on online content.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_elementtoproof\">&#8220;The DPC has been engaging with XIUC (X Internet Unlimited Company) since media reports first emerged a number of weeks ago concerning the alleged ability of X users to prompt the @Grok account on X to generate sexualised images of real people, including children&#8221;, said Deputy Commissioner, Graham Doyle.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_elementtoproof\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22490,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-23857","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) it had opened a formal investigation into X's AI chatbot Grok over the processing of personal data and its potential to produce harmful sexualised images and video, including of children","published_date":"2026-02-17 00:00:00","news_description":"Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) it had opened a formal investigation into X's AI chatbot Grok over the processing of personal data and its potential to produce harmful sexualised images and video, including of children","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26699,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23857\/revisions\/26699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}