Both Apple and Google explicitly ban apps containing CSAM, which are illegal to host and distribute in many countries. The tech giant also bans apps that contain pornographic content or facilitate harassment. The Apple App Store says it doesn’t allow “overtly sexual or obscene content” as well as “abusive, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content,” especially if the app is “likely to humiliate, intimidate, or harm the targeted individual or group.” The Google Play Store bans apps that “contain or promote content involving sexually violent behavior, or distribute non-consensual sexual content,” as well as programs that “contain or promote bullying, harassment, or bullying.”
Over the past two years, Apple and Google removed several “nudify” and AI image-generation apps after an investigation by the BBC and 404 Media found that they were being advertised or used to effectively transform normal photos of women into explicit images of themselves without their consent.
But at the time of publishing, both the X app and the stand-alone Grok app are available in the App Store. Apple, Google and X did not respond to requests for comment. Grok is operated by Musk’s multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence startup xAI, which also did not respond to WIRED’s questions. In a public statement published on January 3, X said it takes action against illegal content on its platform, including CSAM. “Anyone using Grok or inciting to create illegal content will face the same consequences as those who upload illegal content,” the company warned.
Sloan Thompson, director of training and education at EndTAB, a group that teaches organizations how to prevent the spread of non-consensual sexual content, says it’s “absolutely appropriate” for companies like Apple and Google to take action against X and Grok.
The amount of non-consensual explicit images on X produced by Grok has increased over the past two weeks. A researcher told Bloomberg that in a 24-hour period between January 5 and 6, Grok was creating about 6,700 images every hour, which they identified as “sexually suggestive or nude.” Another analyst collected more than 15,000 URLs of images created by Grok on X during a two-hour period on December 31. WIRED reviewed about one-third of the images, and found that many of them depicted women wearing revealing clothing. More than 2,500 were marked as no longer available within a week, while about 500 were labeled as containing “age-restricted adult content”.
Earlier this week, a spokesperson for the European Commission, the EU’s governing body, publicly described the sexually explicit and non-consensual images created by Grok on X as “illegal” and “appalling”, telling Reuters that such material “has no place in Europe.”
On Thursday, the EU ordered Ax to retain all internal documents and data related to Grok until the end of 2026, extending a prior retention directive to ensure officials can access relevant materials to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, although a new formal investigation has not yet been announced. Regulators in other countries, including the UK, India and Malaysia, have also said they are investigating the social media platform.
<a href