Social Media: Non-consensual Sexual Deepfakes

With permission, I would like to make a statement on artificial intelligence, social media and online safety. No woman or child should live in fear of having their image sexually manipulated by technology, yet in recent days the AI tool Grok on the social media platform X has been used to create and share degrading, non-consensual intimate deepfakes.

The content that has circulated on X is vile. It is not just an affront to decent society—it is illegal. The Internet Watch Foundation reports “criminal imagery” of children as young as 11, including girls sexualised and topless. This is child sexual abuse. There have been reports of photos being shared of women in bikinis, tied up and gagged, with bruises and covered in blood, and much, much more. Lives can and have been devastated by this content, which is designed to harass, torment and violate people’s dignity. They are not harmless images; they are weapons of abuse disproportionately aimed at women and girls, and they are illegal.

Last week X limited the image creation function to paid subscribers, but this does not go anywhere near far enough. It is insulting to victims to say that someone can still have this service if they are willing to pay. It is also monetising abuse.

Let me be crystal clear: under the Online Safety Act 2023, sharing or threatening to share intimate images without someone’s consent, including images of people in their underwear, is a criminal offence for both individuals and platforms. My predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hove and Portslade (Peter Kyle), rightly made this a priority offence, meaning that services have to take proactive action to stop this content appearing in the first place. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 made it a criminal offence to create or request the creation of non-consensual intimate images, and today I can announce to the House that this offence will be brought into force this week and that I will make it a priority offence in the Online Safety Act, too. That means that individuals are committing a criminal offence if they create or seek to create such content, including on X, and anyone who does that should expect to face the full extent of the law. But responsibility does not just lie with individuals for their own behaviour; the platforms that host such material must be held accountable, including X.

This morning, Ofcom confirmed that it has opened a formal investigation into X and will assess its compliance with the Online Safety Act 2023. The Government expect Ofcom to set out a timeline for the investigation as soon as possible. The public and, most importantly, the victims of Grok’s activities expect swift and decisive action, so the investigation must not take months and months, but X does not have to wait for the Ofcom investigation to conclude; it can choose to act sooner to ensure that this abhorrent and illegal material cannot be shared on its platform. If it does not, Ofcom will have this Government’s backing to use the full powers that Parliament has given it. I remind X and all other platforms that those include the power to issue fines of up to 10% of a company’s qualifying worldwide revenue, and in the most serious cases, Ofcom can apply for a court order to stop UK users accessing the site.

This Government will do everything in our power to keep women and especially children safe online. I can confirm that we will build on all the measures that I have outlined and will legislate in the Crime and Policing Bill, which is going through Parliament, to criminalise nudification apps. A new criminal offence will make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual intimate images, targeting the problem at its source. In addition to our taking all those actions, we expect technology companies to introduce without delay the steps recommended in Ofcom’s guidance on how to make platforms safer for women and girls. If they do not, I am prepared to go further, because this Labour Government believe that tackling violence against women and girls is as important online as it is in the real world.

This is not, as some would claim, about restricting freedom of speech, which is something that I and the whole Government hold very dear. It is about tackling violence against women and girls. It is about upholding basic British values of decency and respect, and ensuring that the standards that we expect offline are upheld online. It is about exercising our sovereign power and responsibility to uphold the laws of this land.

I hope that MPs on both sides of the House will stand up for British laws and values and call out the platforms that allow explicit, degrading and illegal content. It is time to choose a side. Opposition MPs can either support the legislative action that we are taking through the Online Safety Act, or they can ally themselves with those who think that the creation and publication of sexually manipulated images of women and children is acceptable. I say in particular to the one Reform MP in this Chamber that if Reform continues to call for the Online Safety Act to be repealed, it is shamefully supporting scrapping protections that keep women and children safe.

I would briefly like to address the understandable calls from many MPs and others for the Government to end their participation on X. I really do understand why many colleagues have come to this conclusion when X seems unwilling to clean up its act. The Government will keep our participation on X under review. Our job is to protect women and girls from illegal and harmful content, wherever it is found. It is worth bearing in mind that 19 million people in this country are on X, and more than a quarter of them say that they use it as their primary source of news, and our views—and often simply the facts—need to be heard wherever possible.

Let me conclude by saying this. I believe, and the Government believe, that artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that has the power and potential to bring about extraordinary and welcome change—to create jobs and growth, to diagnose and treat diseases, to help children learn at school, to tackle climate change and so much more besides—but in order to seize those opportunities, people must feel confident that they and their children are safe online, and that AI is not being used for destructive and abusive ends. Many tech companies want to act, and are acting, responsibly, but where they do not, we must and will act. Innovation should serve humanity, not degrade it, so we will leave no stone unturned in our determination to stamp out these demeaning, degrading and illegal images. If that means strengthening existing laws, we are prepared to do that, because this Government stand on the side of decency. We stand on the side of the law. We stand for basic British values, which are supported by the vast majority of people in this country. I commend this statement to the House.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance notice of her statement. Last week, public outrage was rightly expressed about the use of artificial intelligence to undress women and children in photographs by X’s AI assistant Grok. The use of AI in that way without consent is wrong. It is disturbing, and in many cases it is illegal. We support Ofcom in taking enforcement action where an AI tool is used to generate illegal content, especially of children. We support the Government’s stance on nudification tools.

X itself has warned of consequences for anyone prompting Grok to make illegal content. The tools in question have been put behind a paywall, for the easy identification via name and bank details of anyone misusing them. Beyond the platform, however, the Internet Watch Foundation has identified cases where perpetrators have used Grok in tandem with other AI tools to generate category A material. As the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), has rightly said, such mainstream AI tools must not become an enabling step in the child abuse production pipeline.

Law already exists to deal with much of this, including the Protection of Children Act 1978, the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the Sexual Offences Act 2003, the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025—in which the Government voted against tougher amendments tabled by Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge—and the Online Safety Act 2023. Those laws should be enforced. We await Ofcom, the independent regular, setting out its next steps.

Regardless of the law, it is right to expect AI companies to anticipate and prevent misuse of products before their deployment through rigorous red teaming. I accept that for a law to deter, the enforcement threat must be credible, but its use must also be proportionate.

Notwithstanding the soft back-pedalling of the Secretary of State today, the Government’s appendage swinging over the weekend was extremely serious. Ministers mooted as an urgent remedy the banning of a site with 21 million monthly users in this country, despite another Minister guffawing that banning X was “conspiracy theory No. 3,627.”

I was going to say that I was grateful to the hon. Lady for her support for Ofcom’s action and investigations, and her support for our action on banning nudification apps, and that I hope she and her party will actually vote for the Crime and Policing Bill in its final stages, but she then began her own campaign of misinformation in the House. I merely stated the facts about the Online Safety Act. There is a backstop power in the Act, which I remind her that her party voted for in government. Under that power, in the most serious cases, if Ofcom believes that a company is refusing to comply with the law, Ofcom has the power to apply to a court for serious business disruption measures to stop people accessing a platform. If she disagrees with her own Government’s legislation, she should make that clear to the House.

The legislation is extremely clear that it is a criminal offence to share or attempt to share non-consensual intimate images. It is going to be illegal to create or ask to create those images. The ban on nudification apps will be an important change. As I have said, this is nothing to do with freedom of speech; it is about upholding British values and the British law. I also gently point out to the hon. Lady, who mentioned our allies in the United States, that the President signed the Take it Down Act, which deals precisely with non-consensual intimate images. Maybe she should do a little bit more research, rather than just reading headlines, online or in newspapers.

I think the public will be clear about what change they want, and I genuinely hope that this is something we can work on across the House. It is because I am such a champion of freedom of speech that I do not want women to be bullied or harassed off any platform, and want their views and voices heard. The hon. Lady’s colleagues might wish that she would take the same approach; I see that from their faces.

I call the Chair of the Select Committee, Chi Onwurah.

Unlike her shadow, the Secretary of State was rightly passionate when calling out these sexually abusive images. The libertarian tech bro lobby has to accept that consent counts online, too. In her letter to me today, the Secretary of State said that the Online Safety Act was designed to deal with this, but she is being overly generous to the previous Government. The Act was designed, or fudged, to give adults some protection from illegal content on certain services, and to protect children from harmful content more generally, but not including generative AI, and without making platforms responsible for content that they share. Will my right hon. Friend now accept my Committee’s recommendations. and do more to explicitly plug the gaps in the Act, particularly regarding generative AI, as well as tackling the social media business models that incentivise the content that we are talking about?

I am genuinely grateful to my hon. Friend for all the work she and her Committee have done on this issue. I have read its work in detail since coming into post. She will know that I have already said on the issue of AI chatbots, for example, that some are covered by the Act—if they do live searches or share user-to-user content—but I have asked my officials to see where there are gaps. They have said that there are gaps, and I have said that I want to plug them, including by legislating, if that is necessary.

This is a fast-moving area. With the Online Safety Act, plus the additional measures we have taken in the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 and that we will take in the Crime and Policing Bill, we have quite a comprehensive suite of powers here, but I know this is developing quickly, particularly around generative AI. I am always prepared to look to the facts and the evidence and go where that leads me, and if I need to take further action, I will.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

For over a week, Grok has generated illegal sexual abuse material—non-consensual images of women and children—without restraint on X, which took the disgraceful step of putting it behind a paywall. That is abhorrent, and those images are illegal. Unlike the Conservatives, we very much welcome the action being taken and absolutely want to work together to stop this illegal, abhorrent use of AI technology. That is why the Liberal Democrats have called on the National Crime Agency to launch a criminal investigation into X and for Ofcom to restrict access immediately. We also called for Reform MPs to donate their earnings from X to those charities working for those victims of sexual exploitation.

Where there are loopholes around AI creation of these horrific images, we are pleased to hear the Secretary of State announce the establishment of a criminal offence to create, or seek to create, such horrific content and the work to criminalise nudification apps. Regulatory gaps, however, are not the only problem; enforcement is failing, too. While other countries have acted decisively to ban X, Ofcom has taken over a week to start an investigation and lacks the resources to take on these tech giants. What has become clear is that with the pace of technology, the Government must look to future-proof online safety from new harms and harmful features.

The Liberal Democrats have long been raising the alarm. We tabled amendments to raise the age of data consent, proposed a doomscroll cap to curb addiction and called for public health warnings on social media. Protecting women and children from online abuse cannot wait, so will the Government support our calls on these actions? This matters in real life—to my constituent who was harmed by strangulation in a nightclub following online videos, and to the victims of sexual abuse and violence, which often starts online. Given the pace of change, does the Secretary of State have full faith in Ofcom’s ability to enforce the Online Safety Act? Will she meet me because, unlike the Conservatives, I would like us to work together on this important issue and discuss the action needed on AI chatbots and emerging technologies?

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. I think I have said to the House before that patience is not my greatest virtue, but that is because the public and, most importantly, victims want to see this happen quickly. I said in my statement that I expect—because the public expects—Ofcom to do this swiftly. We do not want to wait months and months for action. I am of course happy, as is the Online Safety Minister, to meet her to discuss further steps. There are clear responsibilities here in terms of enforcement of the law on individuals and their behaviour, but the Online Safety Act, which I know her party voted for, does place some of those requirements on Ofcom. We have to see action, and I am sure that that message will be heard loud and clear today.

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the additional steps she has announced today. It is important that action keeps pace with the speed of the technology that it seeks to influence, so can I press her on the timescale for the Ofcom investigation and any subsequent action that may be needed? Can also I press her on the steps that the Government are taking to ensure that children, whose abuse is being enabled by the creation of images by Grok, are safeguarded and protected, and that those responsible face the full force of the law? Can she confirm that, if X continues to take the attitude and approach to these issues that we have seen so far, no options are off the table?

Absolutely no options are off the table. As I said to the Opposition spokesperson, the Online Safety Act includes a backstop power: if Ofcom decides that X has repeatedly refused to comply with the law, it can apply to a court for serious business disruption measures. My hon. Friend is right to raise the issues around protecting children. This is the most abhorrent crime. That is why this Government have been so strong on this. I am very happy to meet with her and talk to her Committee about what other steps we need to take. We will make sure that children are protected, no ifs and no buts.

I call the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

The Secretary of State has given very clear message on this, and I thank her for that. She is right to say that this is not only about X and Grok; many generative AI platforms are facilitating this illegal and dehumanising behaviour. I gently say to her that although she is absolutely right that AI has enormous potential to reshape our lives, over a year since the Government attempted to sacrifice our world-beating creative industries and individuals’ intellectual property on the altar of AI, we are still waiting for news of the AI Bill. However, I am pleased that she has drawn the line here that she will not sacrifice the safety of women and children.

I agree that there are gaps in the legislation—of course there are—but there is a lot of legislation out there and, since the Online Safety Act came into force in March, Ofcom has taken so very little legal action against illegal content, which is so prolific. How confident is the Secretary of State that Ofcom has not only the resources, but the willpower—the stomach—to take on these big tech companies?