Ofcom is investigating X over potential violations of the Online Safety Act, Britian's comms watchdog has confirmed.
The probe follows heavy pressure from politicians for the regulator to take action after a period of heightened scrutiny of its AI chatbot, Grok, generating sexualized images without the consent of users, mainly women.
Announcing the investigation, Ofcom said on Monday: "There have been deeply concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share undressed images of people – which may amount to intimate image abuse or pornography – and sexualised images of children that may amount to child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
"As the UK's independent online safety watchdog, we urgently made contact with X on Monday, January 5, and set a firm deadline of Friday, January 9, for it to explain what steps it has taken to comply with its duties to protect its users in the UK.
"The company responded by the deadline, and we carried out an expedited assessment of available evidence as a matter of urgency."
Ofcom did not offer any details about the nature of X's response, but the regulator is understood to have sought urgent clarification from xAI about how it plans to protect UK users.
The formal review will assess whether X understands the risk of UK users – including children – seeing illegal content on the platform, whether it has taken the appropriate steps to prevent access to illegal content, and its efforts to remove illegal content once posted.
Offenses under the Online Safety Act can be punished with fines of up to £18 million ($24 million) or 10 percent of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is higher.
The most serious offenders may also be subjected to business disruption measures, which would see a UK court compel payment providers and advertisers to cease their trading relationships with a given organization.
An Ofcom spokesperson said: "Platforms must protect people in the UK from content that's illegal in the UK, and we won't hesitate to investigate where we suspect companies are failing in their duties, especially where there's a risk of harm to children.
"We'll progress this investigation as a matter of the highest priority, while ensuring we follow due process. As the UK's independent online safety enforcement agency, it's important we make sure our investigations are legally robust and fairly decided."
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall, said in a statement today that she welcomes Ofcom's decision to invesitgate X, which needs to conclude "swiftly" on behalf of victims and the general public.
"The content created and shared using Grok in recent days has been deeply disturbing and I will be updating Parliament later today on the government's response."
Despite the controversies around Grok and its capability to digitally undress people surfacing months ago, discussions of the issue reached a fever pitch last week as UK authorities started looking seriously at X.
On Friday, Members of Parliament pressed the UK government for answers as to why it has not penalized X over the Grok nudification furor.
In letters to to tech minister Liz Kendall and Ofcom CEO Melanie Dawes, Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, said Grok's non-consensual sexualized deepfakes were "extremely alarming."
Dame Onwurah pointed to legislative gaps that, at present, seemingly allow these nudification tools to operate unchecked.
Passed in July 2025, the Data Use and Access Act includes a provision to ban the creation of deepfake imagery, although it is not yet in force, as secondary legislation must be passed.
Similarly, the Online Safety Act makes intimate image abuse a criminal offense, but it does not specifically legislate against AI-generated intimate imagery, provided that it is not shared.
These legislative gaps aside, there are provisions in UK law that ban the kinds of content Grok was generating. For example, the Sexual Offences Act makes it illegal to share non-consensual intimate images or CSAM, and this section of law was inserted into the Online Safety Act.
The majority of Dame Onwurah's questions were leveled at Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator. She asked [PDF] Dawes why the regulator has only now made urgent contact with xAI, X's AI arm, instead of beginning an immediate investigation when reports of Grok's abuse began circulating months ago.
Ofcom did not address these questions head-on in its announcement today.
Additionally, Ofcom is expected to explain its views on other related matters, such as X limiting Grok's image functionality to paid users only, whether the regulator feels equipped to enforce penalties under existing laws, and what kinds of talks it has held with X thus far.
The committee chair simply asked [PDF] Kendall when the government will ban nudification tools, and what it is doing to track the AI harms that aren't covered by existing legislation.
"Reports that xAI's Grok has been used to create non-consensual sexualised deepfakes on X are extremely alarming," said Dame Onwurah. "My committee warned last year that the Online Safety Act was riddled with gaps – including its failure to explicitly regulate generative AI. Recent reports about these deepfakes show, in stark terms, how UK citizens have been left exposed to online harms while social media companies operate with apparent impunity.
"I've written to both the government and Ofcom seeking urgent clarity on how they will tackle the rapid rise of these AI-generated intimate deepfakes. We need transparency on Ofcom's conversations with xAI and a clear explanation of whether it has the powers to take effective enforcement action. The government must also set out when it will finally introduce the promised ban on nudification tools and take the steps needed to protect women and children online."
Kendall issued a statement on Friday, unconnected to Dame Onwurah's letter, denouncing Grok's nudification functionality, calling on Ofcom to exercise the full legal powers given to it.
She also confirmed that the government is "in the coming weeks" implementing new powers that will criminalize the creation of non-consensual intimate images, and the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently in the process of becoming law, includes a ban on nudification tools.
Kendall pointed to Ofcom's guidance on preventing violence against women and girls (VAWG), published in November, saying she expects all platforms to abide by the principles as set out in that document [PDF].
The regulator's VAWG guidance technically applies to all platforms in scope of the Online Safety Act, and mandates that special action must be taken to detect harmful activity and support those at risk. Punishments can range from having to ban users to full regulatory enforcement action.
Kendall's statement also rejected X's decision to restrict Grok's image-generation functionality to paid users only – an apparent effort to limit the abuse of Grok by the masses.
"Sexually manipulating images of women and children is despicable and abhorrent," she said. "It is an insult and totally unacceptable for Grok to still allow this if you're willing to pay for it.
"I would remind xAI that the Online Safety Act includes the power to block services from being accessed in the UK, if they refuse to comply with UK law. If Ofcom decides to use those powers, they will have our full support."
However unlikely an outright ban on X may be, it would not be unprecedented. In recent days, the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia both blocked public access to the social media platform over Grok's nudifying issues.
Malaysia's Communications and Multimedia Commission said X failed to address the problem, while Indonesia's minister of communications and digital affairs, Meutya Hafid, described Grok's deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights and dignity. ®
Source: The register