Grok has been criticized for its ability to create deepfakes, but it is hardly the only tool that can do so

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Over the weekend, news broke that the British government was attempting to rally international support to take on Elon Musk’s social media platform X over its AI tool’s ability to create explicit deepfake images, raising fears about the sexual exploitation of women and children. According to the Telegraph, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has threatened to ban the site, held talks with “like-minded” countries, which potentially include Australia and Canada.

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The nature of the talks, the fact that the same images can already be created using other tools and that the government has not gone after several other platforms that appear to be the main contributors to child exploitation, have raised questions about whether the desire for governments to penalize the platform — instead of the individuals who create deepfakes — may be about censorship rather than protecting women and children.

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