UK in talks with Canada and Australia to ban Elon Musk's X — GB News
Photo: The US threatens Britain with sanctions if it bans social media (Getty Images)
The UK has held talks with Canada and Australia about a possible ban on social network X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, GB News reports.
Musk's social network has found itself at the center of a scandal over fears that its artificial intelligence chatbot Grok is being used "to generate explicit images of women and children".
Now United Kingdom is negotiating with other countries on a trilateral joint response. GB News notes that Australia and Canada share British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's concerns about the problem of "deepfakes."
In particular, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said:
"The fact that this tool was used so that people were using its image creation function through Grok is, I think, just completely abhorrent. It, once again, is an example of social media not showing social responsibility. Australians and indeed, global citizens deserve better," he says.
At the same time, Canadian Liberal MPs are still denying that their country is going to ban the social network X.
"Canada is not considering a ban of X," says Evan Solomon, MP for Toronto Centre.
What UK ban would mean and how Musk reacted
The agency writes that Britain has threatened to go further and completely ban X under internet safety legislation if Musk does not remove the feature that allows users to create explicit images.
Such a move could provoke outrage from the Trump administration, which opposes censorship of American technology companies abroad.
Yesterday, Saturday, January 10, Elon Musk called Labour Party members fascists and warned that ministers were simply looking for any excuse to censor his program.
In addition, Republican Congresswoman Anna Pauline Luna, an ally of US President Donald Trump, threatened to impose sanctions against Starmer and Britain if the country blocked the social network X.
GB News also added that blocking X would put the UK on a par with countries such as Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia.
However, government officials believe that coordinated action by several countries will send a strong signal to Musk.
Incidents with Grok
In July, the chatbot Grok was embroiled in a scandal after posting a series of comments about Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust. For this reason, X was forced to implement filtering measures.
Grok, billed as a truthful chatbot, has long reflected the preferences of its owner, Elon Musk. However, in November, users noticed that the chatbot had become noticeably more active in praising its creator.
