Call for council to quit X amid AI controversy

A councillor has called on his local authority to quit social media platform X amid a row over the use of its in-built AI tool, Grok.

Labour councillor David Branson, who sits on Middlesbrough Council, said he wanted the authority to remove itself and actively advocate against its use.

Branson made the comments in a meeting discussing violence against women and girls, and referenced criticism of the AI tool reportedly being used to create sexualised deepfake images.

A spokesman for the Labour-led authority said its account was used to share important updates. X previously said anyone using the tool to make illegal content would face the same consequences as if they were uploading it.

In a post on X, owner Elon Musk said he was "not aware" of any naked underage images generated by Grok.

"When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state," he said.

Branson told the council that X, formerly known as Twitter, had "come up for a lot of criticism because of what it's allowing people to do on its system."

He said it needed to look at controlling the way in which such internet services operate, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Branson acknowledged the authority would not be able to police this and was also aware of the "danger" of people doing the opposite of what the authority said.

A Middlesbrough Council spokesman said it continued to keep its social media use under review.

They added: "[X] has recently been used to notify people of flu vaccine clinics, remind parents to apply for a primary school place for their child and share details of changes to bin collections over the festive period."

During Prime Minister's Questions, Sir Keir Starmer told MPs he welcomed reports that X is taking action.

Sir Keir said he had been informed it was "acting to ensure full compliance with UK law" - but his spokesman later clarified he did not have any new information from the firm and was instead responding to media reports.

Regulator Ofcom has launched an investigation and the government has said it will enforce a law criminalising the creation of non-consensual deepfakes.

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