Elon Musk’s X has committed to cracking down on illegal content to protect UK users, Britain’s media regulator said Friday, as it steps up pressure on social media platforms.
The commitments include reviewing suspected illegal terrorist and hate content within an average of 24 hours of it being reported, and blocking accounts linked to proscribed terrorist organisations in the UK, Ofcom said in a statement.
Ofcom launched a programme last year to ensure the biggest social media companies have adequate systems in place to deal with illegal material shared on their platforms.
“We have evidence that terrorist content and illegal hate speech is persisting on some of the largest social media sites,” said Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s online safety director.
He said X’s commitments were “a step forward, but there’s a lot more to do”.
X, which was called Twitter before Musk bought it, will be required to submit quarterly performance data over 12 months so Ofcom can monitor whether it is delivering safety improvements for UK users.
Contacted by AFP, X did not immediately respond.
The regulator said online safety concerns have become particularly pronounced in the context of a recent spate of antisemitic attacks in the UK.
In January, Ofcom opened a probe into X over its AI chatbot Grok’s image-creation feature that has been used to produce sexualised deepfakes.
Ofcom said on Friday that its investigation into Grok remained ongoing.
Britain’s data watchdog has also launched a wider investigation into Musk’s X and xAI — which developed the Grok AI tool — to see whether the companies complied with personal data law when it came to Grok’s generation of sexualised deepfakes.
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