The global outcry over the sexualisation and nudification of photographs – including of children – by Grok, the chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, has led to urgent discussions about how such technology should be more strictly regulated.

But to what extent can technology also be used to prevent this explosion in the generation and sharing of deepfake content of real people, without their knowledge or consent?

On January 10, Indonesia became the first country to announce it was temporarily blocking access to Grok, followed soon after by Malaysia. Other governments, including the UK’s, have promised to take action against the chatbot and its related social media site X (formerly Twitter), on which the sexualised images have been shared.

But while outright national bans can limit casual use of the chatbot, such bans are easily bypassed using virtual private networks (VPNs) or alternative routing services. These mask the user’s real location and make it appear they originate from a location that allows access to the service.

As a result, country-level bans tend to reduce visibility rather than eliminate access. Their primary impact is symbolic and regulatory, placing pressure on companies such as xAI rather than preventing determined misuse. And content generated elsewhere can still circulate freely across borders via encrypted social media platforms and on the dark web.

In response to the controversy, X moved Grok’s image-generation features behind a paywall, making them only available to subscribers. X subsequently posted that it takes “action against illegal content on X, including child sexual abuse material, by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary”. Grok itself apologised for “the incident”, describing it as a “serious lapse”.

While not all chatbots have image generation capabilities, most of the mainstream providers including OpenAI, xAI, Meta and........

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