A senior State Department diplomatic official has indicated that Washington may take retaliatory action if British regulators move forward with potential plans to ban Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
Politico reports that Sarah B. Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, stated that “nothing is off the table” should the UK government proceed with threats to prohibit the operation of X within its borders. The warning came during an interview with GB News that was broadcast in the UK during the early morning hours of Tuesday.
Rogers, who was appointed to her position by President Donald Trump, framed the potential conflict as a matter of free speech principles. She told the British news outlet that from America’s perspective, all options remain available when it comes to protecting freedom of expression. Rogers suggested that the appropriate course of action would be to wait and observe what decision the UK governments makes before determining how the United States would respond.
The potential ban is the result of Elon Musk’s Grok AI generating sexualized images of women and even children in the style of AI deepfake “nudify” sites, which when then posted on the X platform. As Breitbart News previously reported, Grok generates sexualized images even when women expressly forbid it from altering their pictures. The chatbot later “apologized” for sexualizing images of children, which it blamed on “lapses in safeguards.”
The dispute centers on an ongoing investigation by Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator responsible for online safety enforcement. As Breitbart News reported:
Ofcom, which was empowered by the Conservative government-era Online Safety Act to impose fines up to £18 million or 10 per cent of a social media firm’s global revenue or even potentially ban platforms outright, said that in response to “deeply concerning” reports about Grok image generation, it will formally investigate Musk’s X platform to “determine whether it has complied with its duties to protect people in the UK from illegal content.”
A spokesman for the regulator said, “Reports of Grok being used to create and share illegal non-consensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material on X have been deeply concerning.
“Platforms must protect people in the UK from content that’s illegal in the UK, and we won’t hesitate to investigate where we suspect companies are failing in their duties, especially where there’s a risk of harm to children.
The diplomatic tension has attracted attention from American lawmakers as well. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) announced last week that she was working on legislation that would sanction the United Kingdom if authorities there follow through with banning X from operating in the country. This demonstrates growing political support within certain segments of the American government for defending the platform.
In her interview with GB News, Rogers accused the British government of pursuing the ability to control public discourse and silence political perspectives it finds objectionable. She characterized the situation as fundamentally political in nature, claiming that X possesses a political orientation that British authorities oppose and dislike, which she asserts is the true motivation behind the regulatory action.
Read more at Politico here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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