Three Democratic U.S. senators—Ron Wyden, Edward Markey, and Ben Ray Luján—are urging Apple and Google to remove the social media platform X and its AI chatbot Grok from their app stores. They cite serious concerns regarding the generation of explicit content involving women and children, which they argue violates app store policies prohibiting disturbing material. Reports indicate users are leveraging Grok to create nonconsensual sexual imagery, prompting the senators to accuse Elon Musk’s platform of negligence. The lawmakers insist that failing to act undermines Apple and Google’s claims of providing safe user environments. They emphasize that previous swift removals of other apps signal both companies’ capabilities to act when necessary. With increased scrutiny on Grok following disturbing image outputs, X’s restriction of Grok’s capabilities for paid subscribers has done little to quell regulatory concerns. The U.K. data protection regulator is investigating compliance with data laws, highlighting the urgent need for accountability in social media platforms.
Source link