Anthony Albanese condemned Generation
Albanese on Saturday condemned the use of generic AI to exploit or sexually exploit people without their consent, saying Australians deserved better. He said that the online security regulator will look into this.
Albanese’s X account then posted a video from the same press conference on X. In response people attempted to inspire Grok to create an image of the Prime Minister in a bikini.
Grok was disabled for image creation for non-paying users on
Searching on
Regulators around the world, including Australia, are now investigating Grok, with fines and the possibility of blocking Grok or X as possible outcomes. Meanwhile some countries have reportedly blocked access to chatbots.
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In Australia, the eSafety Commissioner has sent a “please explain” letter, which could eventually lead to a fine being sought in federal court, but given X’s long history of challenging eSafety’s regulatory actions, this may take years.
Nearly three years after Elon Musk took over X, it’s unclear what the platform can do to force people who keep posting there to eventually decide to leave.
Those who saw it become an increasingly toxic platform, most recently with the MakeHitler incident last year, or the massive amount of misinformation on the platform after the Bondi terrorist attack, have already fled to other platforms like Bluesky or Threads.
Those who have remained on
Despite the Prime Minister’s outcry and protests, politicians are not voting with their feet and going elsewhere.
Guardian Australia contacted several Australian politicians – including those who had posted about the Grok issue – to ask whether they would continue to post on the site.
Many people said that they have to go where the people are.
The second response was that journalists still post there – somewhat of a chicken or egg conundrum.
Less clear is why government agencies, emergency services and others still post on X. The change to the algorithm under Musk to reward the most divisive content in the feed should certainly highlight that it is less useful in breaking news situations where information needs to be disseminated rapidly.
One thing is different. The accounts of the eSafety Commissioner’s office and of Commissioner Julie Inman Grant herself quietly stopped posting on X in August last year.
eSafety has been embroiled in a legal battle with X over the past few years and has been a target of Musk and his supporters on the platform, so its absence isn’t all that surprising. But if Australia’s online security regulator deems X an unsafe place, what does it say for the rest of us?
Indifference towards X is not limited to politicians alone. Apple and Google have so far remained silent on why X remains in their app stores when hosting such content. Those of us with a long memory will remember when Apple hastily forced Tumblr to remove all consensual adult content from its platform or be kicked out of the App Store.
Perhaps the royal commission on anti-Semitism should investigate the role of social media, Anti-Semitic posts found at high level after a report On X.
At the time of the Center for Countering Digital Hate report, Ax posted that he was “dedicated to fighting abuse motivated by hate, bias or intolerance – especially when it is aimed at silencing voices”.
If eSafety’s investigation demands some kind of penalty, the regulator could take a stronger response and use its power to order app stores to remove apps for hosting illegal content.
Until then it seems there are nothing more than abbreviations for grok in Australia.
