X could face UK ban over deepfakes, minister says And they say comedy is dead!

Jan 09, 2026
25 views
Tech Tamasha
X could face UK ban over deepfakes, minister says And they say comedy is dead!
In what can only be described as peak entertainment, Technology Secretary Liz Kendall says she would back regulator Ofcom if it blocks UK access to Elon Musk's social media site X for failing to comply w... Because apparently, this is where we are now.

Well, well, well. 

 

 Technology Secretary Liz Kendall says she'd back controller Ofcom if it blocks UK access to Elon Musk's social media point X for failing to misbehave with online safety laws. 

 

 Ofcom says it's urgently deciding what to do about X's artificial intelligence( AI) chatbot Grok, which digitally undressed people without their concurrence when tagged beneath images posted on the platform. 

 

 X has now limited the use of this image function to those who pay a yearly figure. 

 

 But Downing Street said the change was" affronting" to victims of sexual violence, while a domestic abuse charity called it" monetising abuse". 

 

 Kendall said" Sexually manipulating images of women and children is despicable and contemptuous. 

 

 She added" I, and more importantly the public, would anticipate to see Ofcom update on coming way in days not weeks." 

 

 She said the Online Safety Act" includes the power to block services from being penetrated in the UK, if they refuse to misbehave with UK law" and" if Ofcom decide to use those powers they will have our full support". 

 

 An Ofcom prophet said" We urgently made contact( with X) on Monday and set a establishment deadline of moment( Friday) to explain themselves, to which we've entered a response." 

 

" We are now bearing an expedited assessment as a matter of urgency and will give farther updates shortly." 

 

 Ofcom's powers under the Online Safety Act include being suitable to seek a court order to help third parties from helping X raise plutocrat or be penetrated in the UK- should the establishment refuse to misbehave. 

 

 These so- called business dislocation measures remain largely untested. 

 

 The use of Grok to inducenon-consensual sexualised images has been condemned by politicians on all sides, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer calling it" shy" and" disgusting". 

 

 Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said it was" horrible in every way" and that X" needs to go further" than the changes it had made to Grok before on Friday. 

 

 But he said the idea of banning X in the UK was" honestly shocking" and an attack on free speech. 

 

 The Liberal Egalitarians have called for access to X to be temporarily confined in the UK while the social media point was delved. 

 

 Grok is a free tool which druggies can tag directly in posts or replies under other druggies' posts to ask it for a particular response. 

 

 The tool can still edit images on X if penetrated through other areas of the platform, similar as via its in- erected" edit image" function, or on its separate app and website. 

 

 numerous requests have been made asking it to edit images of women to show them in bikinis or little apparel commodity those subject to similar requests have told the BBC left them feeling" lowered" and" dehumanised". 

 

 still as of Friday morning, Grok has told druggies asking it to alter images uploaded to X that" image generation and editing are presently limited to paying subscribers", adding druggies" can subscribe to unlock these features". 

 

 Some posts on the platform seen by BBC News suggest only those with a blue crack" vindicated" mark-exclusive to X's paid subscriber league- were suitable to successfully request image edits to Grok. 

 

 Dr Daisy Dixon, a speaker in gospel at Cardiff University and womanish X stoner who said she had seen an increase in people using Grok to undress her, ate the change but said it felt" like a sticking cataplasm". 

 

" Grok needs to be completely redesigned and have erected- in ethical rails to help this from ever passing again," she told the BBC. 

 

" Elon Musk also needs to admit this for what it's- yet another case of gender- grounded violation." 

 

 Hannah Swirsky, head of policy at the Internet Watch Foundation, said it" does not undo the detriment which has been done". 

 

" We do n't believe it's good enough to simply limit access to a tool which should noway have had the capacity to produce the kind of imagery we've seen in recent days," she said. 

 

 The charity preliminarily said its judges had discovered" felonious imagery" of girls progressed between 11 and 13 which" appeared to have been created" using Grok. 

 

 Labour MPs are decreasingly unhappy with the party's use of X to get its political dispatches out. 

 

 Blurted dispatches from the Administrative Labour Party's WhatsApp group, used to post adverts

       for backbench Labour MPs to partake on social media, show at least 13 Labour MPs have called on the government to stop using the platform. 

 

 The dispatches, first reported by Politics Home and seen by BBC News, show Labour MPs calling on the government to" take a stage" and" put our dispatches out in other places". 

 

 One MP said" As some of us have requested since Musk went each fascist, rather than X, our government should start using another platform". 

 

 Another said" Any images of children( and women) in government comms on X put those children in damages way." 

 

 before on Friday, Downing Street suggested that the government would continue posting on X. 

 

 The high minister's functionary prophet told journalists changes to the way Grok complied with stoner requests to edit images on the platform showed X" can move fleetly when it wants to". 

 

 They said it was" abundantly clear that X needs to act and needs to act now". 

 

" It's time for X to grip this issue, if another media company had billboards in city centres showing unlawful images, it would act incontinently to take them down or face public counterreaction," they added. 

 

 subscribe up for our Tech decrypted newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? subscribe up then. 

 

 And they say comedy is dead! 

 

 Stay tuned for further similar gems, because the world noway stops giving us content!