X has submitted its first quarterly report to Ofcom on the action it has taken when suspected hate and terror content is reported to it by users.
While there appear to have been improvements in how quickly X is reviewing this material, we have ongoing concerns around the effectiveness of X’s response to taking down illegal hate and terror content.
We will scrutinise the data submitted to us and continue to engage with X as a matter of priority regarding its content moderation outcomes.
X’s commitments to tackle illegal hate and terror content
In May, following intensive engagement with Ofcom, X committed to reviewing suspected illegal terrorist and hate content reported through its dedicated UK illegal content reporting tool within an average of 24 hours over the course of three months.
As a backstop, it also committed to review and assess at least 85% of suspected illegal hate and terror content reported through its dedicated UK illegal content reporting tool within a maximum of 48 hours, over a three-month period.
We said we would assess X’s quarterly performance data submitted to us over a 12-month period.
We have now received X’s first quarterly report. Compared to evidence analysed earlier this year, this latest data appears to show some improvements in the average time it takes X to act on these reports, and its performance falls within the agreed response timeframes under its commitments.
We will be cross-checking these performance metrics against our own tests, and we have been clear with X that it must, as a minimum, sustain this performance.
We have ongoing concerns, however, around the effectiveness of X’s response to taking down illegal hate and terror content, and we have received mixed reports around the sustained delivery of X’s commitment to engage with third-party experts.
We are continuing to engage with X on these issues as a priority to drive improvements from them. We also expect to present a further analysis of their performance in our next update early in the new year, once we have received further data from the company.
Update on investigation into X
Earlier this year, Ofcom was one of the first regulators in the world to act on concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share demeaning sexual deepfakes of real people, including children, which may amount to illegal content.
During our investigation, we have gathered and analysed an extensive amount of information – using our formal powers – to understand X’s processes and examine its compliance with a range of different duties under the Online Safety Act.
The issues we have been interrogating include: the way it assessed the risk of illegal content appearing on its platform; how easy it is for users to report suspected illegal content; and how it approached the moderation decisions it made in response to reports.
Our investigation will now determine whether – based on the evidence we have gathered – we consider X has complied with its duties to protect people in the UK from illegal content.
If we have reasonable grounds to believe that it has failed to meet its duties, our next step would be to issue a provisional view to X setting out the reasons for our proposed findings. X would then have a full opportunity to respond to our findings, as required by the Act, before we make our final decision.
Improvements secured to protect children from porn on X
As a result of our evidence-gathering during the investigation, we discovered that in certain circumstances, age-gated pornographic material remained accessible on X to accounts that had not been verified as belonging to users aged 18 or over.
In response to our concerns, X has now implemented a series of changes to its service. This means that content labelled as pornography is consistently restricted for accounts that have not completed age assurance via X’s designated methods.
We have therefore decided to focus the remainder of our investigation on its compliance with its illegal content and complaints and reporting duties, although we continue to monitor the effectiveness of its age checks.
Changes to the standalone Grok service
When we opened our investigation into X in January, we were clear that we were unable to investigate the creation of illegal images within the standalone Grok service, because of gaps in the way chatbots are covered under the Act.
However, following engagement with Ofcom, SpaceXAI (formerly xAI) implemented restrictions at that time to block people from using the service to generate or view images of real people in revealing attire, such as bikinis.
Since then, as a result of further engagement with Ofcom, SpaceXAI has also implemented restrictions to ensure children in the UK are protected from encountering pornographic content on the Grok service.
It has restricted people with UK IP addresses from viewing, generating and/or sharing pornographic content using the image generation technology provided by standalone Grok in app or via links. Additionally, SpaceXAI implemented restrictions to its companion chatbots, including ‘Ani’, to prevent them from engaging in sexually explicit conversations with UK users.
Ofcom will continue to monitor the application of these restrictions and engage with SpaceXAI about the wider application of the Act to the standalone Grok service.
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