UK bans Elon Musk

UK bans Elon Musk

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UK bans Elon Musk

Emmet Lyons is a newsroom editor in News themezone’ London bureau and coordinates and produces stories for all News themezone platforms. Before joining News themezone, Emmet worked as a producer at CNN for four years.

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London — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Thursday that he wants “all options to be on the table,” including a possible ban on Elon Musk’s Platform generate sexualized images of people without your consent.

Starmer’s comments come as Musk’s platform faces scrutiny from regulators around the world over the Grok image editing tool, which has allowed users to create digitally altered, sexualized photographs of real people. including minors.

“This is disgraceful, disgusting and should not be tolerated. X has to control this,” Starmer said in an interview with a UK radio station. “It’s illegal. We’re not going to tolerate it. I’ve asked that all options be on the table.”

A source in Starmer’s office reiterated to News themezone on Friday that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to regulating X in Britain.

Keir Starmer holds the first PMQs of 2026
Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves his residence at 10 Downing Street to attend a weekly question and answer session at the British Parliament, on January 7, 2026, in London, England. Carl Court/Getty

News themezone has verified that Grok responded to user requests asking him to edit images of women to show them in bikinis or scantily clad, including prominent public figures such as first lady melania trump.

Last week, Grok, a chatbot developed by Musk’s company xAI, acknowledged “safeguard failures” that allowed users to generate sexualized and digitally altered photos of minors.

Grok told users that as of Friday, access to its imaging tool was limited “to paying subscribers” to its user verification service. Paying subscribers have to provide their credit card and personal data to the company, which could deter some people from using the service, especially if they intended to use Grok’s artificial intelligence tool to create illegal images of minors.

xAI responded to a request for comment from News themezone about criticism of Grok’s imaging tool and the steps it had taken to limit access to it on Friday, saying, “Legacy media lies.”

Addressing reporters on Friday morning, a UK government spokesperson called the move to limit access to Grok’s image-editing tool to paying users “insulting” to victims of misogyny and sexual violence, saying it “simply turns an AI feature that enables the creation of illegal images into a premium service.”

Under the UK Online Safety Act, sharing intimate images without consent on social media is a criminal offence, and social media companies must proactively remove such content, as well as prevent it from appearing in the first place.

If they fail to do so, companies can face heavy fines or, in cases of last resort, face what would effectively be a ban from Britain’s independent media regulator Ofcom. Ofcom can force payment providers, advertisers and internet service providers to stop working with a site, preventing it from making money or being accessed from the UK.

In a post shared on Monday on its own X account, Ofcom said it was “aware of the serious concerns raised about a feature on Grok on

“We have made urgent contact with

Musk’s platform has faced scrutiny from governments around the world, including the European Union and the US Congress, over Grok AI’s digital alteration of real images.

On Wednesday, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said in a post on X that “many of the recent AI-generated posts are unacceptable and a clear violation of my legislation, now law, the act of knocking it downas well as the terms and conditions of X.”

“These illegal images represent a serious threat to the privacy and dignity of the victims. They must be removed and security barriers must be placed,” Cruz said, adding that he was encouraged by the measures taken by X to remove the illegal images.

On Thursday, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, threatened to sanction the UK government if Starmer took action to ban X in the UK.

“If Starmer manages to ban @X in Britain, I will move forward with legislation currently being drafted to sanction not just Starmer, but Britain as a whole,” Paulina Luna said in a post on her own X account.

Aimee Picchi contributed to this report.

In:

  • fake
  • Elon Musk
  • Social networks
  • sexual abuse
  • Keir Starmer
  • Artificial intelligence
  • United Kingdom
  • Twitter

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