Minister to give update on X amid deepfake row

The Technology Secretary is expected to address MPs about social media platform X after backing a potential UK ban on the website over the creation of deepfake images using its AI tool.

Liz Kendall is set to give a statement in the Commons on Monday following a row over reports that Grok, the chatbot owned by Elon Musk, had digitally undressed people without their consent.

Ministers have expressed their disgust at the use of the tool to make deepfakes and said they would back Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom if it decided to block access to X for failing to comply with online safety laws.

Ofcom has been in contact with X and xAI, Grok’s creator, over the production of images of undressed people and sexualised images of children and is carrying out an “expedited assessment” of the firms’ response.

Tech tycoon Elon Musk, the boss of Grok’s creator xAI and the X social media platform where images have been shared, has accused the UK Government of being “fascist” and trying to curb free speech after ministers stepped up threats to effectively block his website.

Trade Secretary Peter Kyle, who previously served as technology secretary, defended the UK’s Online Safety Act but conceded there was “more work to do” to protect people online, “particularly in places like X”.

“Let me be really clear about X – X is not doing enough to keep its customers safe online,” he told Sky News.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said US vice president JD Vance was sympathetic to efforts to tackle the Grok-produced images, although Donald Trump’s free speech tsar later likened the UK’s threats to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Mr Lammy, who met Mr Vance in the US on Thursday, told The Guardian he raised the issue of Grok “and the horrendous, horrific situation in which this new technology is allowing deepfakes and the manipulation of images of women and children, which is just absolutely abhorrent”.

“He agreed with me that it was entirely unacceptable,” Mr Lammy said.

Sarah Rogers, under-secretary for public diplomacy at the US state department, later said the UK was “contemplating a Russia-style X ban, to protect them from bikini images”.