WITH serious concerns continuing to be raised over online safety and privacy online as X’s Grok AI tool allows users to generate sexually explicit images, Limerick TD and Media and Communications Minister Patrick O’Donovan revealed that he has deleted his X account over the controversy.
The Fine Gael politician made the U-turn after facing heavy criticism for having said that X was not responsible for the explicit images, including child sex abuse images, that have been generated using the platform’s technology. To the contrary, he suggested that responsibility lay with the platform users as “it’s a choice of a person to make these images”.
Speaking on Limerick Live 95’s Limerick Today show, Minister O’Donovan said he deleted his X account over the digital undressing scandal that has engulfed the Elon Musk-owned platform.
“I’ve deactivated it. And look, as Minister for Communications and Minister for Media, I just felt that if you’re on a platform where this is allowed, regardless of whether you’re paying for it or not, I just don’t feel comfortable with it,” he confessed.
“I don’t feel comfortable with the fact that there’s people that are going to use my image, or your image, or somebody else’s image and artificially generate something around it and maybe make it into something that it shouldn’t [be] and publish it then.”
This comes as Mental health charity Turn2Me called on media regulator Coimisiún na Meán and the European Commission to block Grok AI, a generative artificial intelligence tool integrated into the X platform, which has generated sexualised AI images of women and children.
Reports indicate these deepfake images are being produced in significant volumes, raising global safety concerns.
Section 5(1) of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act relates to producing and distributing child pornography. It makes it an offence for any person to knowingly produce, distribute, print, import, export or publish any child pornography. It’s also an offence to knowingly cause of facilitate any of these activities. Successful convictions can result in a fine or to imprisonment for up to 14 years or both.
“Turn2Me is deeply alarmed by the ongoing proliferation of non-consensual and exploitative AI-generated content that is extremely harmful to people’s mental health,” said Fiona O’Malley, CEO of Turn2Me.
“The psychological impact on victims of having their likenesses altered and disseminated as explicit material, particularly when children are involved, cannot be overstated. This kind of abuse can exacerbate trauma, anxiety, depression, and distress in vulnerable people seeking safety online. There is legislation that already exists to protect citizens from this form of online abuse, including the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1988 and Coco’s law,” she concluded.