Elon Musk’s xAI practically noticed its Grok chatbot app faraway from Apple’s App Retailer following the controversy that erupted over the surge of non-consensual, sexualised deepfakes generated utilizing the AI instrument earlier this yr.
Whereas Apple didn’t difficulty a public assertion in the course of the Grok ‘undressing’ controversy, the iPhone maker discovered that X and Grok had violated its App Retailer tips and threatened to take the Grok app down behind the scenes, in keeping with a report by NBC Information.
In January this yr, each Google and Apple got here underneath intense stress from lawmakers to tug the Grok and X apps from their respective app shops with the intention to tackle the flood of sexualised deepfakes created by customers who had found that the AI chatbot would readily adjust to requests to undress folks in images, significantly girls, together with minors.
Apple reportedly “contacted the groups behind each X and Grok after it obtained complaints and noticed information protection of the scandal,” requiring “the app builders to create a plan to enhance content material moderation.” When X submitted an replace of the Grok app for evaluate by the App Retailer, the submission was rejected as a result of the “modifications didn’t go far sufficient.”
X as soon as once more submitted revised variations of the X and Grok apps however solely one in all them was accepted by the App Retailer. That is the primary time particulars of Apple’s actions have been made public. It additionally underscores a rising rift between social media platforms and app shops. Beforehand, Musk has threatened to sue Apple for allegedly favouring rival OpenAI over Grok on its App Retailer.
“Apple reviewed the subsequent submissions made by the builders and decided that X had considerably resolved its violations, however the Grok app remained out of compliance. Because of this, we rejected the Grok submission and notified the developer that further modifications to treatment the violation could be required, or the app could possibly be faraway from the App Retailer,” Apple was quoted as saying in a letter to US senators on the peak of the backlash towards Grok.
“Following additional engagement and modifications by the Grok developer, we decided that Grok had considerably improved and due to this fact authorized its newest submission,” the letter learn.
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What’s the Grok undressing controversy?
xAI started this yr with a surge of latest customers that have been seemingly pushed to the platform because of the firm’s comparatively lax strategy to safeguarding Grok’s capabilities. The AI chatbot drew the ire of lawmakers and regulators world wide, together with in India, after it was used to generate non-consensual sexual imagery of individuals, together with minors in some instances.
Within the aftermath of the Grok undressing controversy, three Democratic US senators – Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, and Edward Markey of Massachusetts – known as on Apple and Google to take away X in addition to the Grok app from their app shops.
The letter printed in January 2026 famous that Apple’s App Retailer phrases of service barred sexual or pornographic materials whereas Google’s Play Retailer phrases of service prohibited app builders from “creating, importing, or distributing content material that facilitates the exploitation or abuse of kids.” “Turning a blind eye to X’s egregious habits would make a mockery of your moderation practices,” the letter learn.
The Indian authorities responded to the controversy by issuing a stern discover, following which X eliminated 3,500 items of content material and blocked 600 accounts whereas admitting its mistake. The federal government had expressed dissatisfaction over X’s response to its January 2 discover on its failure to look at due diligence obligations underneath the Data Know-how Act, 2000 and related guidelines.
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The platform confronted the same backlash within the UK, Malaysia and Indonesia. It shortly moved to restrict Grok’s AI picture era capabilities solely to paid customers. “Anybody utilizing Grok to make unlawful content material will endure the identical penalties as in the event that they add unlawful content material,” Musk warned customers on X.
Regardless of inside modifications by xAI, the Grok difficulty doesn’t seem to have been resolved. A separate report by NBC Information discovered dozens of AI-generated sexualized photos of actual girls posted to X over the previous month.
“We strictly prohibit customers from producing non-consensual specific deepfakes and from utilizing our instruments to undress actual folks. xAI has intensive safeguards in place to stop such misuse, reminiscent of steady monitoring of public utilization, evaluation of evasion makes an attempt in actual time, frequent mannequin updates, immediate filters, and extra safeguards,” the X Security account posted in response to the NBC report.
A February report by Reuters had additionally discovered that whereas Grok’s public X account is not producing the identical flood of sexualised imagery, the Grok chatbot app continues to take action when prompted, even after being warned that the themes have been weak or could be humiliated by the photographs.