The European Commission announced this Monday (26) the opening of an investigation against the social network
In a statement, Brussels said it will assess whether X has adequately examined and mitigated the risks associated with implementing Grok’s functions in the European Union, including the possible distribution of illegal content, such as sexually explicit manipulated images that could even be considered child sexual abuse material.
“These risks appear to have materialized. Therefore, the Commission will investigate whether X complies with its obligations under the Digital Services Act to assess and mitigate systemic risks (…) and to produce and submit to the Commission an ad hoc risk report on Grok functionalities that have a fundamental impact on X’s risk profile before launching it,” he stated.
Even before starting the investigation, the European Commission had already ordered the social network
The order came amid controversy over the generation of images of naked children and women generated by Grok in recent weeks, which led the French government to sue X in court.
Sources acknowledged that X took some measures to stop the spread of this type of image after the controversy and after the European Commission increased pressure on the company, but highlighted that the recently opened investigation “goes beyond” sexualized images, dealing with a more generalized problem with the architecture of the social network and its AI.
The European Commission believes that, if these allegations are proven, X would be in breach of several articles of the Digital Services Law to which it is subject when operating in the European Union, including on the assessment and mitigation of systemic risks to European citizens.
The same sources indicated that the investigation does not have a specific timeline or defined deadlines, but that, given the risks related to Grok’s functionalities, the process will be processed “as a priority” in Brussels.
Brussels already fined X in December last year 120 million euros for failing to comply with transparency obligations under this law, due to the “deceptive design” of its blue verification badge, the lack of transparency of its advertising repository and the lack of access to public data for researchers.
In parallel, Brussels also extended this Monday its investigation that began in 2023 into whether X complies with its risk management obligations in its content recommendation systems, which will include the impact of the change to a system based on Grok’s artificial intelligence.
