comments Elon Musk has been told to take urgent action to stop X's Grok AI tool generating indecent deepfake images of children and women. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said the US tech billionaire must intervene after cases of the system being used to make sexualised images of real people were highlighted in recent days. Regulator Ofcom has already asked X and xAI to set out the steps it is taking to comply with legal obligations to protect UK users of the social media platform. But the intervention of the minister threatens to open a new front in the war between the UK government and Mr Musk, who has already lashed out at British moves to regulate social media. 'What we have been seeing online in recent days has been absolutely appalling, and unacceptable in decent society,' Ms Kendall said this afternoon. 'No one should have to go through the ordeal of seeing intimate deepfakes of themselves online. 'We cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these demeaning and degrading images, which are disproportionately aimed at women and girls. 'X needs to deal with this urgently. It is absolutely right that Ofcom is looking into this as a matter of urgency and it has my full backing to take any enforcement action it deems necessary.' Ofcom has 'urgently contacted' X and xAI over the sexualised images of children, which Grok admitted to in a post on the social media platform Under the Online Safety Act in the UK, social media firms must prevent and remove child sexual abuse material when they become aware of it. The act also outlaws the use of AI to generate pornographic images, also known as deepfakes, of people without their consent. But X users have highlighted cases in recent days where innocent images of women and female child actors have been manipulated by Grok after users' requests to digitally alter or remove clothing. Ms Kendall said efforts to curb the spread of sexualised deepfakes were not an attempt to restrict free speech. Donald Trump's US administration has hit out at European regulators for attempts to regulate what appears online on American platforms. But Ms Kendall said: 'Services and operators have a clear obligation to act appropriately. This is not about restricting freedom of speech but upholding the law. 'We have made intimate image abuse and cyberflashing priority offences under the Online Safety Act – including where images are AI-generated. This means platforms must prevent such content from appearing online and act swiftly to remove it if it does. 'Violence against women and girls stains our society – and that is why we have also legislated to ban the creation of explicit deepfakes without consent, which are both degrading and harmful. 'Make no mistake – the UK will not tolerate the endless proliferation of disgusting and abusive material online. We must all come together to stamp it out.' Ofcom has made 'urgent contact' with Elon Musk's social media platform X after serious concerns that its AI tool Grok can generate 'sexualised images of children'. A post on the Grok X account admitted this, saying: 'isolated cases where users prompted for and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing' Join the debate