Gardai urged to seize X servers over 'deepfake' child abuse material claims
Legal intervention may be required to address the presence of child sexual abuse materials on Irish internet servers.
Green Party Councillor Hazel Chu has taken to social media to demand action against Elon Musk and the AI chatbot Grok, which has been editing images of women and underage individuals without their consent. Without proper oversight from X, formerly Twitter , this chatbot has been editing images of people and “putting them in bikinis, in their underwear or nudifying them in general.”
“This is illegal because it is the sharing of harrassment because Grok then puts said image back up and shares to the user and then users then reshare them, so it is harassment under Coco’s Law, it is also child sexual abuse material being created and shared, which is illegal under the 2017 Act as well,” Cllr Chu explained.
Cllr Chu said there must be an investigation called for X to be shut down due to the "sharing of illegal material." She said that other platforms like TikTok and Instagram have safeguards in place to ensure illegal videos are censored.
“X however is falling foul of that, not only are there no safeguards in place, but they are directly violating individuals rights and they are complicit in an illegal act,” she said.
The independent media regulator Comisiun na Mean has stated they are engaging with the European Union over explicit images being shared on X and Ofcom in the United Kingdom are also looking into the legality of “deepfake” content. Deepfakes utilises AI technology to maliciously spread false information and images.
“The gardai need to be involved because if there is illegal material and child sexual abuse materials being generated and shared on X then they are sitting on a server, some of them in Ireland, and that needs to be confiscated by the gardai” Cllr Chu said.
Cllr Chu explained that there is currently a gap in the law as, although it is illegal to harassment material, there is no specific clause outlawing the sharing of deepfakes. While Enterprise Minister Peter Burke recently stated he believes the current law is “robust” when it comes to addressing this issue, Cllr Chu believes urgent intervention is needed to stop the spread of sexually explicit deepfake material, particularly of children.
“If the law is not amended, what you will have is further creation of deepfakes and no one being held accountable for it, so amend the current law and that will be a step in the right direction,” she said.
When contacted for comment, a spokesperson from X stated:
"We take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.
“Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.
“For more information on our policies, please refer to our help pages for our full X Rules and range of enforcement options."
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