The New Epstein Island Is Right In Your Pocket: It’s Time To Abandon Elon Musk’s Paradise of Abuse

Over the past few weeks, it’s become clear that numerous users on X have been using Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot that’s integrated into the platform, to produce thousands of nonconsensual sexualized images of people—primarily women. The most common theme has involved users requesting the chatbot edit images by removing clothing, adding items like bikinis, and even further sexualizing the subject by altering their pose or photoshopping in additional graphic details. Most horrifying of all, many of the images are of people who are either currently underage or were underage in the photograph being manipulated. This means that a percentage of the images produced on X is in fact CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material). 

The outrage has been far-reaching. Government officials in places like the United Kingdom and Australia, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, have criticized both the platform and Musk. For its part, X has been slow to manage the production of sexual images by Grok, only moving on Friday to restrict Grok’s image-generation to paying users and insisting users bear liability for requesting or posting illegal images. Musk himself made light of the scandal early on, posting an AI image of toaster in a bikini. And he has criticized the backlash as “an excuse for censorship.” 

Illegal and nonconsensual material, including CSAM, has continued to be viewed and produced on the site. Reporters have found that off X, on the Grok app itself, the bot is producing even more abusive material. It’s a crisis for regulators. In the UK, new measures are being put into effect, an investigation is being launched, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer has left open the possibility that X could be banned entirely in the country. But it is also a moral crisis for anyone still using the site as a part of their online social lives. This should be what drives every respectable user off the site for good. 

But today, too many large, famous, and otherwise influential accounts remain on X, creating a vicious feedback loop for journalists, media figures, and politicians to justify their continued presence. X continues to enjoy premier status as a place for breaking news for governmental agencies, pop culture stars, journalists, and other public figures. This is all despite its owner using the site to promote bigotry and hate, assault global democracy, and spread dangerous conspiracies. Under Musk, harassment and threats have flourished, and now the platform has become a proliferator of sexually abusive material. 

Among the many victims is Musk’s own ex-partner and the alleged mother of one of his many children, Ashley St Clair. St Clair has been subjected to the repeated undressing and sexualization of her image, including one of her at age fourteen. These images remained up for hours, despite complaints. St. Clair has been outspoken in her criticism of Musk and the platform, especially in response to these abusive images. On Thursday of last week, St. Clair found her account’s premium features had been revoked, including monetization. 

Some of this content has even metastasized into sexually violent images, with users requesting that Grok add bruises to women and bind them in addition to stripping their clothes. As Amelia Gentleman and Helena Hortman reported on Sunday for The Guardian:

The requests became ever more extreme. Some users, mostly men, began to demand to see bruising on the bodies of the women, and for blood to be added to the images. Requests to show women tied up and gagged were instantly granted. By Thursday, the chatbot was being asked to add bullet holes to the face of Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed by an ICE agent in the US on Wednesday. Grok readily obliged, posting graphic, bloodied altered images of the victim on X within seconds.

Speaking to Parliament this week, the UK’s technology minister Liz Kendall said,

The content which had circulated on X is vile. It’s not just an affront to decent society, it is illegal…But the responsibilities do not just lie with individuals for their own behavior. The platforms that host such a material must be held accountable, including X. 

She is right. X must be held accountable. But I now have to ask, why are so many people still there? Why are MPs still posting there? Why are organs of the British government still using a site one of its own ministers just condemned in such clear moral and legal terms? Why are other governments? Why are Democratic elected officials? Why are figures like Jimmy Fallon and organizations like Oxfam? Why is anyone? 

To his credit, Ireland’s media minister deactivated his account, telling The Journal, “I just don’t feel comfortable with it.” On the other hand, Canadian AI minister Evan Solomon took to X to reassure the public that the Canadian government is not considering banning the site. In this case, he did it while quote-posting his own condemnation of deepfake sexual abuse. It’s farcically absurd. 

To reiterate, this is a website operated by an abusive and hateful hundred-billionaire, overrun with racists and misogynists, mired in vitriol, and now complicit in the production of revenge porn and CSAM. It’s a haven of bile, abuse, and criminality just sitting on our phones. It’s bizarre and absurd for the Digital Agency of Japan or Maroon 5 to post casual updates while countless anonymous—but “verified”—users engage in horrific abuse. 

Crucially, X falls short of other platforms when it comes to basic utility. If the goal is to reach a large audience, Instagram and TikTok dwarf its engagement figures, boasting 3 billion and 1.9 billion respective monthly users to X’s 557 million. If the issue is a hunger for information and the appeal of a text-based social media platform, surely Bluesky is a superior option. There, safety appears to be a priority, links aren’t throttled, and users’ timelines aren’t tilted in favor of “premium” accounts. The appeal of X for many big accounts seems to be a sense of access and prestige that the site no longer deserves. 

If I can offer an intemperate analogy, I think the situation is not unlike the years in which Jeffrey Epstein arrogated power and influence unto himself while publicly cavorting with young girls and privately subjecting them to systematic rape and abuse. As we’ve learned over the last year, many of the people who associated with Epstein seemed to have at least some sense of what and who he was. Some even stuck around after a conviction and subsequent reporting made increasingly clear the nature of his depravity. 

We know what X is. We know who Musk is. Why hang around this wretched place run by this odious villain, knowing that engagement puts ad dollars back into the machine? The question is even more urgent for the largest and most prominent accounts. 

It has long been time to leave X. Now, it’s essential. Allow the site to fester as another far-right bubble. 

Audiences will follow. Communities will regroup. Celebrities, organizations, and politicians must lead by abandoning the site. 

Featured image is Man Mocked by Two Women, by Francisco Goya