UK media regulator says concerns persist over X's handling of illegal content

LONDON, Oct 14 : Britain's media regulator Ofcom said on Wednesday it remained concerned about Elon Musk-owned X's handling of illegal hate and terror content and was assessing whether the platform breached online safety laws, despite improvements in response times.

X's first quarterly report to Ofcom showed it had met commitments to review suspected illegal hate and terror content within agreed timeframes, with response times improving compared with evidence examined earlier this year.

However, the regulator said it had "ongoing concerns" about the effectiveness of X's efforts to remove illegal hate and terror content and had received mixed reports over the company's engagement with third-party experts.

The regulator also said that SpaceXAI, formerly xAI, had introduced further restrictions to its standalone Grok AI chatbot service, including measures preventing UK-based users from viewing, generating or sharing pornographic content and barring companion chatbots such as "Ani" from engaging in sexually explicit conversations.

Ofcom opened its investigation in January after reports that Grok was being used to create and share sexualised images that could amount to illegal content. Reuters had found Grok was still generating sexualised images of people when prompted, even where users explicitly said the subjects had not consented.

The regulator said it would now determine whether X had complied with its legal duties to protect people in Britain from illegal content.