Arya News - The offices of X in France were searched by French prosecutors as they widened a probe into Grok sexual
Feb. 3 (UPI) -- French cybercrime authorities searched the offices of Elon Musk"s X in Paris on Tuesday as they investigate the company on suspicion of illegal harvesting of data and complicity in the possession or distribution of child pornography.
The Paris Prosecutor"s Office said it raided the premises as part of its year-long investigation into the platform and its AI chatbot, Grok, and had ordered Musk and former chief executive Linda Yaccarino to testify at hearings in April.
Local employees will also be called in for questioning , according to the prosecutors office which confirmed it was closing its account on the platform.
Possible breaches of people"s image rights by using Grok to create non-consensual sexualized images of women and children and allegations of fraudulent data extraction by an organized group are also being looked at.
The investigation, which focused on misuse of algorithms when it launched in January 2025, was widening its scope to include the so-called "sexual deepfakes" and the spreading of "Holocaust denial content," said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau.
X told CNN in July that the French investigation was a "politically motivated" attack on free speech and denied all wrongdoing.
Earlier on Tuesday, Britain"s information regulator opened an investigation into xAI and Grok, saying its potential to produce harmful sexualized images and videos posed a "risk of significant potential harm to the public."
The Information Commissioner"s Office said reports that this type of content was being produced and shared was a matter of serious concern under the country"s data protection laws.
Before that, the country"s communications watchdog launched an investigation on Jan. 12 after being deluged by complaints from online safety campaigners, politicians and women alleging they had been victimized by X users abusing Grok.
The probe is to determine whether X has failed to comply with its legal obligations under the Online Safety Act.
These include preventing people in the U.K. from seeing "priority" illegal content -- non-consensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material -- removing illegal content, protecting users from privacy law breach and assessing the risk to children and using "highly effective" age verification to protect them from seeing pornography.
Ofcom has the power to punish breaches of U.K. law with a $24 million fine or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater, or in extreme cases get a court order to block offending sites.
On Jan. 25, the European Commission followed France"s lead, launching a similar "deepfakes" investigation into Grok under European Union laws covering digital services, along with X"s "recommender" feature to establish whether X"s algorithm disseminates illegal content, such as child sexual abuse material.
Musk responded to Ofcom"s probe by accusing the British government of seeking "any excuse for censorship."
Nevertheless, the company recently announced a series of steps to prevent account holders from using Grok"s AI tools to take real images of individuals online and undress them or alter them to portray them in a sexualized way.
"Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content," said a post on X"s Safety Account, which stressed the company permanently suspended offending accounts and worked with local governments and law enforcement "as necessary."