Ofcom has announced the launch of his investigation into X. Including a threat to shut it down in the UK…
The media regulator says:
“Ofcom has today opened an investigation into XIUC’s compliance with its duties under the Act. The investigation follows widespread reports that a Grok model on X is/was being used to generate and share content that may amount to intimate image abuse, CSAM and pornography that is accessible to children.
Ofcom’s investigation will seek to establish whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that XIUC has failed, or is failing, to comply with its legal obligations as set out above.
Ofcom’s Online Safety Enforcement Guidance sets out how Ofcom will normally approach enforcement under the Act. This includes our approach to information gathering and analysis and the procedural steps we must take to fairly determine the outcome of the investigation.
Where we identify compliance failures, we can impose fines of up to £18m or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue (whichever is greater). In the most serious cases of ongoing non-compliance, and where appropriate given the risks of harm to individuals in the UK, we can make an application to a court for ‘business disruption measures’, through which a court could impose an order, on an interim or full basis, requiring payment providers or advertisers to withdraw their services from a platform, or requiring internet service providers to block access to a site in the UK. The court may only impose such orders where appropriate and proportionate to prevent significant harm to individuals in the UK.”
DSIT secretary Liz Kendall will make a statement on X in the Commons later today. Labour has been leaning hard on their ‘all options on the table’ line since last week…
Business Secretary Peter Kyle told Times Radio that the government is considering banning X:
“Yes, of course. We gave these powers to Ofcom and not giving them the powers to Ofcom with the proviso that they will never be used. We gave very strident powers to Ofcom, which is our independent regulator, with very specific legal obligations to and the powers to use them in certain circumstances. So the law doesn’t allow for these sorts of powers to be used in certain circumstances.”