If women quit X because of Grok’s deepfake nudes, the predators win – so I’m staying

The internet has always hated women; it was only a matter of time until it started undressing them. That might sound glib, but there is no appropriate tone for what has been happening on Elon Musk’s X platform, where its Grok AI tool has been used to digitally alter photographs of women’s bodies so that they appear partially or entirely nude, via an image-editing feature.

Over the last week, women have reported seeing photos of themselves in bikinis with parts of their bodies manipulated, including their breasts being enlarged. On Thursday, the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation revealed that the tool has been used to create sexual imagery of girls aged between 11 and 13. Quite rightly, this has prompted global opprobrium, with regulators calling on X to take urgent action.

Now, it has – sort of. As of Friday, Grok’s image-editing tool has been restricted to paid users, meaning anyone requesting illicit material must now be an X subscriber, with their name and payment details on file. Far from reassuring, this feels too little, too late – and worse still because it follows Musk’s claim that Grok is “on the side of angels”. Is this really a platform committed to protecting women? Or is it one that now offers perversion at a premium?

With this in mind, the service hasn’t truly been limited at all. It has merely been repackaged as a cash-grab: anyone seeking to digitally undress women and children is now putting money directly into Musk’s cavernous pockets. It would be myopic to dismiss this as dystopian, even if it feels that way. This isn’t some speculative, imagined reality created for Netflix by Charlie Brooker. It’s real – and it’s terrifying.

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X says it takes action against illegal content on the platform, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts and working with local governments and law enforcement where necessary. The company has stated that anyone using or prompting Grok to create illegal content will face the same consequences as those who upload such material, and has pointed users towards its help pages for its full “X Rules” and range of enforcement options.

Even so, perhaps it’s unsurprising that women are leaving the platform altogether. On Wednesday, the House of Commons women and equalities committee announced it would no longer use X for its communications, citing its commitment to preventing violence against women and girls.

This follows similar announcements from several women’s organisations, including Solace and Women’s Aid Ireland, which described Grok’s non-consensual sexual imagery as a “tipping point”. These departures echo those of female celebrities who abandoned their X profiles after Musk purchased the platform, with Jamie Lee Curtis, Gabrielle Union and Alyssa Milano among them.

All of this is understandable. If X is no longer a safe space for women – and is actively placing us at risk through pornographic deepfakes (now accessible only to paying users) – why would we stay? Grok’s capabilities are abhorrent, but they are not surprising. This technology has been steeped in misogyny from the start: shortly after the metaverse emerged, there were reports of female avatars being sexually assaulted.

Despite everything, I’m resisting the urge to log off X. Not because I endorse anything Musk has done, but because I refuse to let the predators win. If every woman deletes her account, what are we left with? A degenerate echo chamber where perverts and paedophiles are welcome, provided they pay an entry fee? That helps no one. In fact, I suspect that the more of us leave, the more this kind of behaviour will escalate.

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This is grim, to say the least. Mass female departures from X represent yet another instance of women being forced to modify their behaviour to accommodate dangerous men. We already avoid walking alone after dark. We already walk home at night with keys clenched in our hands. We already cover our drinks in clubs. Why, then, should we be the ones forced to leave X? Shouldn’t we be removing the predators instead?

Violence against women is too often tolerated rather than confronted – both in policy and in society – which is precisely why it persists. As AI opens the door to myriad new and terrifying forms of abuse, the need to push back has never been more urgent.

We have to remain on these social media platforms to fight back, even when we are made unwelcome. It’s the only way they will ever become safe spaces for women. For now, I’m staying on X. And I won’t be going anywhere any time soon.