Several U.S. senators have demanded detailed answers from X, Meta, Alphabet, Snap, Reddit and TikTok over the spread of non-consensual, sexualized AI-generated deepfakes, urging the companies to demonstrate that they have “robust protections and policies” in place and to preserve all records related to the creation, detection, moderation and monetization of such content, according to a letter sent to the firms on Thursday, a move that came hours after X said it updated its Grok chatbot to block edits of real people in revealing clothing and limit image generation to paid users, with the senators warning that existing guardrails were failing as users continued to bypass protections, citing reports of Grok producing sexualized images of women and children, while noting that similar issues persist across platforms including TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and Reddit; “In practice, however, as seen in the examples above, users are finding ways around these guardrails. Or these guardrails are failing,” the letter said, as Reddit reiterated that it bans non-consensual intimate media.
While Alphabet, Meta, Snap and TikTok did not immediately respond, and the letter—signed by eight Democratic senators—also followed Elon Musk’s claim that he was “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok” and California’s launch of an investigation into xAI amid growing scrutiny of AI-generated deepfakes.