Apple, Google pulled into Grok controversy as campaigners demand app store takedown
- Reference: 1768492216
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/01/15/apple_google_pulled_into_grok/
- Source link:
A coalition of 28 digital rights organizations, led by UltraViolet, delivered [1]nearly - [2]identical letters to Apple's Tim Cook and Google's Sundar Pichai on Wednesday.
UK regulators swarm X after Grok generated nudes from photos [3]READ MORE
The missives, part of a campaign dubbed "Get Grok Gone," accuse both companies of profiting from the proliferation of non-consensual intimate images (NCII) and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) generated on X using the Grok AI chatbot. The groups argue that allowing the apps to remain available violates Apple's and Google's own app store policies against facilitating or profiting from abusive content.
"As it stands, Apple is not just enabling NCII and CSAM, but profiting off of it," the groups wrote in the open letter sent to Cook. "As a coalition of organizations committed to the online safety and well-being of all - particularly women and children — as well as the ethical application of artificial intelligence, we demand that Apple leadership urgently remove Grok and X from the App Store to prevent further abuse and criminal activity."
The demand lands amid mounting regulatory scrutiny. Ofcom, the UK's comms watchdog, [4]said on Thursday that it will continue its formal investigation into X, despite recent damage control from Elon Musk's platform.
[5]
Ofcom's probe, opened under the UK's Online Safety Act, focuses on whether the way Grok has been used to create and share intimate and potentially illegal images has breached X's legal obligations to protect users in the UK. Even after X said it had implemented measures to [6]prevent Grok from being misused to "digitally undress" people, the regulator made it clear the inquiry is ongoing.
[7]
[8]
The row flared up earlier this month after reporting showed Grok, xAI's chatbot bolted onto X, could be steered into [9]churning out sexually explicit image edits of real people from uploaded photos. Once word spread, the feature was quickly abused at scale, with researchers and journalists documenting a flood of sexualized outputs — some of them appearing to involve minors — and drawing swift backlash from child-safety groups and regulators.
[10]AI nudification site fined £55K for skipping age checks
[11]Malaysia and Indonesia block X over failure to curb deepfake smut
[12]HSBC app takes a dim view of sideloaded Bitwarden installations
[13]Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on
X's first response was to [14]restrict access to Grok's image-editing capabilities to paid subscribers , but the platform has since tightened controls further, geoblocking certain image manipulations in countries where they are illegal and stating that Grok will no longer produce sexualized edits of real people.
Yet for the advocates behind the "Get Grok Gone" letters, such changes fall far short of what's needed. In their letters to Apple and Google, the groups argue that both companies are still effectively enabling the distribution of harmful content by hosting the apps that facilitate it.
The groups argue this puts both companies on shaky ground under their own app-store rules, which ban apps that facilitate criminal activity or the spread of sexual exploitation material.
[15]
Whether Cupertino and Mountain View will act on the demands is yet to be answered, but the campaign adds more pressure to an already-snarled argument over AI safety, free speech, and how far platform responsibility stretches.
The Register has asked Apple and Google to comment and will update this article if we hear back. ®
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[1] https://weareultraviolet.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/FINAL-Organizational-Sign-On-Letter_-Demand-Apple-Google-Remove-Grok-from-App-Stores-3.pdf
[2] https://weareultraviolet.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/FINAL-Organizational-Sign-On-Letter_-Demand-Apple-Google-Remove-Grok-from-App-Stores-1.pdf
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/08/uk_regulators_swarm_x_after/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/15/ofcom_grok_probe/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aWlxl_2A38S0UGJNH_lPwAAAA0k&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/15/ofcom_grok_probe/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aWlxl_2A38S0UGJNH_lPwAAAA0k&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aWlxl_2A38S0UGJNH_lPwAAAA0k&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/03/elon_musk_grok_scandal_underwear_strippers_gross/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/21/ofcom_osa_fine_undress/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/asia_tech_news_roundup/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/07/hsbc_bitwarden_sideloaded/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/16/apple_dma_complaint/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/grok_image_generation_uk/
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aWlxl_2A38S0UGJNH_lPwAAAA0k&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Please ..
By that logic can we ban all "AI" that features an image generation mode. That would be fun.
I do not use FB, but I have heard from friends who insist on using it, that despite the supposed anti porn algorithms that offensive content can crop up (be it directly or via a link) so please can we ban all social media apps while we are at it?
I thought grok in Twitter/X was only a thing for paying user accounts (I would guess a small proportion of users?) not the majority of free use accounts
People just love to run to the censorship idea. Ban everything they don't like. If Apple and Google follow through, it just opens then up to lawsuits, and I hope regulations against banning apps going forward.
I agree. Everyone should be allowed to make as much CSAM and degrade women as much as they like.
/Sarcasmmoff
That's a fancy non-sequitur you've got there. :-)
Sure would be a shame if someone pointed out that *you* are the problem, if you feel that a fake picture of a nude woman degrades that woman. Or, for that matter, a *real* picture.
It is not a nude picture of woman that is the problem. It is a nude picture of a woman WITHOUT HER CONSENT that is the problem.
If someone did this to your wife, daughter, niece, and spread that picture around, I think you would be pretty f%&king angry. And that is what is happening here. In Real Life. And that is a major problem. If you cant see that, then sorry, but YOU are the problem.
> If someone did this to your wife, daughter, niece,
People always say this to justify censorship, as though it matters. What would I care what people do in their own minds? How do you propose to stop others from fantasizing? What really concerns me is the suggestion of mind-police, and censorship, and the social harm being caused by that already.
Spreading a fake picture should not affect any person who is in any such picture. See any celebrity: they still star in movies, they still get jobs and have work. People who harass these people because they saw a fake picture - those are the people who are doing bad things, and those people should be dealt with. It's called stalking or harassment, and it actively infringes causes harm to others.
People fantasizing over someone doesn't harm another, and you will never, ever be able to stop it.
By focusing on such things, all you will achieve is outraging yourself. Your life will be absolutely full of it. I understand it goes hand-in-hand with its friends Anxiety and Depression. Truly, being offended by the irrelevant actions of others is not a good way to go through life. Photoshopping has been around since Photoshop came to be. It has not gone away. AI image editing will likewise not go away. If you get outraged over AI-generated pictures, your life is going to be full of outrage. That's probably not a good thing. I encourage you to find something more productive to focus on.
A Yougov poll [1]shows you're part of the 1% . No, not that 1%, the other 1%.
[1] https://yougov.co.uk/technology/articles/53828-ai-tools-should-not-be-allowed-to-make-undressed-images-say-britons
This would be fine, IF Apple and Google had not made themselves the Arbiter of what is or isnt permitted in their App Stores.
There are dozens of far less harmful Apps that Apple and Google have pulled for significantly less shit than X has. Plenty of Apps that were kicked out that were NOT creating and distributing illegal content.
So if Apple and Google want to hold themselves as Gatekeepers than they need to enforce the rules equally, and not allow something to remain on the store that is breaking their terms and conditions, just because it has a rich Douchebag behind it.
Quite frankly, if Apple and Google DONT follow through with this, it opens them up to a ton of lawsuits from all of those Apps that have been banned. Since clearly Apple and Google have not been applying their rules fairly and to everyone...
So fight "censorship" by compelled speech? Governments forcing someone to put a product that the company finds unsafe or objectionable is far more totalitarian. It's Apple's walled garden, their rules, and that curation does make it far less likely to install malware than Google's Play Store. If that's a problem for people, they can buy an Android device. Maybe they shouldn't (and that's another matter entirely), but users trust Apple's store.
Further, removal isn't necessarily permanent. Xitter/Grok can fix the problem and submit it again. If there's a problem with a product, yeah, pull it off the shelves. It can always come back once it no longer does the things that got it removed in the first place.
I remember
when a computer was a thing you bypassed with a carb. I wish those days would return. Used to be, I'd wish for a time machine so I could go back in time and make changes in past mistakes. Today, I'd go back to 1972, then destroy the machine.
Relevance? None of this shit was a problem then.
While I agree that Grok and its stripper functionality is dangerous, removing the apps does nothing. You can still use it from your browser.
Everyone who loves AI. Welcome to the new world and it won’t be pretty.