US official warns UK against ‘Russia-style’ ban on X over AI-generated images
Donald Trump’s free speech tsar has compared the UK Government’s threats against social media platform X to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Sarah Rogers, under-secretary for public diplomacy at the US State Department, made the comparison as part of a series of messages criticising the UK.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said the Government would back regulator Ofcom if it decided to implement a ban on accessing X from the UK over its artificial intelligence Grok being used to create deepfake images.
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.
Ofcom has been in contact with X and xAI over the production of images of undressed people and sexualised images of children and is carrying out an “expedited assessment” of the firms’ response.
Ms Rogers said the UK was “contemplating a Russia-style X ban, to protect them from bikini images”.
But Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy claimed US vice president JD Vance was sympathetic to efforts to tackle the Grok-produced images.
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.
“I think he recognised the very seriousness with which images of women and children could be manipulated in this way, and he recognised how despicable, unacceptable, that is and I found him sympathetic to that position.”
Mr Musk claimed the Government “want any excuse for censorship” and “just want to suppress free speech”.
Responding to a chart showing arrest figures for online posts with the UK at the top, Mr Musk said: “Why is the UK Government so fascist?”
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Ms Kendall said: “We are drawing an unbreakable line in the sand and telling tech firms, in no uncertain terms, that platforms profiting from abuse will never be acceptable.
“Innovation must serve humanity, not degrade it. If companies choose greed over responsibility, they will face the full force of the law.”
She said the Online Safety Act includes the power for courts to block services from being accessed in the United Kingdom if they refuse to comply with UK law.
“These powers exist for a reason. If we reach a point where Ofcom decides to use them, they will have the full support of this Government,” she said.
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Short version.
US officials say pushing revenge porn, children porn etc. is a right for the far right nazi saluter.
And now they say only people who pay should have the right to make child porn. Farage is paid by twitter.
Now, twitter is banned in Russia, and Iran, but do the US do anything about that? No? There we go, they want to push hateful material.
Highly ironic that the fascist USA government, that through Elon Musk pollutes X with Grok AI images and bots spreading vile propaganda, should accuse UK of fascistic decision-making.
Pot, yours sincerely, Kettle
Presumably Russia would lose influence if X were banned. Just saying, that’s all.
So Musk ensures that fascist joins Islamophobia, Paedophile, Islamophobia and several other words on the Alice in Wonderland list of words which mean whatever the utterer wants them to mean. Trump and Musk are bullies.
The trend continues. Bullying. Do what we want or suffer the consequences. It’s time the rest of the democratic world stood together and said – No! Enough! Bullies will not stop until you stand up to them.
What’s stopping anyone preparing the same photos using, you guessed it: Photoshop – should we ban Photoshop??
The child photos in question are terrible and illegal; I’m sure AI “Grok” will be tweaked to stop vile people abusing Grok.