WATCH: Keir Starmer and EU launch new assault on free speech as Elon Musk mocks censorship bid

The EU sparked uproar today for fears of an assault on free speech when it announced an investigation into X and GROC

Today the Commission is opening an investigation into GROC under the Digital Services Act because we believe that X may have breached the DSA

We have seen over the last weeks and months anti-Semitic content. We have seen non-consensual deepfakes of women and we have seen child sexual abuse material

In Europe, no company will make money by violating our fundamental rights

The move comes at the same time the UK government claimed deepfakes may necessitate the banning of X

Can I thank you for raising this? The actions of Grok and X are disgusting and they're shameful

And frankly, the decision to then turn this into a premium service is horrific

And we're absolutely determined to take action here. We've made it clear that X has to act, and if not, Ofcom has our full backing and will introduce and are introducing legislation

Ofcom should use the full powers of the law that Parliament has given it

X needs to get a grip and get this material down. and I would remind them that in the Online Safety Act there are backstop powers to block access to services

if they refuse to comply with the law for people in the UK

and if Ofcom decides to use those powers they would have the full backing of the government

Elon Musk acted to reduce the risk of Grok creating illegal material

by reserving the tool to verified subscribers only, thus creating an onus on the user to be responsible

rather than restricting their ability to create content. This, however, was not enough to pacify the Europeans

One will argue that X has limited this to premium subscribers. Let be very clear child sexual abuse material is not a premium privilege Because such output has no place in Europe and we need to protect our citizens from potential future harms

This is why this investigation into GROC will allow us to look deeper into the matter

to protect our women, our children, and our citizens. And I think it is insulting to say that you can still access this service if you pay for it

There are also powers in the Online Safety Act which enable Ofcom to block those services being made available to people in the UK

And as I said, we would want to ensure Ofcom uses the full range of powers that it has

That the EU and the UK are acting at the same time, at speed, under the same pretense has raised eyebrows

US Undersecretary of State Sarah Rogers believes the investigations are an operation in censorship

as the establishment plummets in support. Trying to conflate speech and violence

is something that advocates of censorship have done for a long time. If the UK bans X, it won't be the first country to do so

Russia bans X. Venezuela bans X. Iran bans X. Free societies generally don't

Now, notice the sleight of hand that Liz Kendall is doing there because the topic of the day is a potential ban of X

and she speaks more narrowly about non-consensual intimate images being illegal. guess what, Bev? There are already laws against revenge porn, and there are already laws against

defamation. So if you were to depict someone credibly in a way that could be mistaken for a

real image of that person, depicting that person in some kind of sexual degrading scenario that

she'd never undertaken herself, you could already be sued under existing legal devices. And creating

a new legal device isn't out of the question. Our First Lady Melania Trump has championed a statute

called the Take It Down Act, which would give the victim of that image a notice and takedown

remedy, similar to what we have for copyright. I think cautious regulation is the best approach

here but when you at a new technological frontier sometimes there a temptation to just enact a flurry of new technological regulations designed to put that technological innovation back in the bottle We saw this with the invention of the telegraph We saw this with the invention of the film strip And when you look back at

history at each of those moments which you discover and which you wish your forebears would

have known is that sometimes people just need to get used to the real technology. They need to get

used to these images not being real. And I smiled before because I think you and I are both female

public figures and have both had images of us created. And I can see why people would find those

images uncomfortable. But I'm willing to be a bit uncomfortable if that's what it takes to be free

And that's the promise of a free society. You can't protect everybody from offense

all the time. And do you think Elon Musk has done enough? Because he has tried, I think

as you say, it's a new technology. Is he doing enough to reassure the British government that

he's going to make changes? Does he need to do anything to reassure the British government

I mean, look, Elon Musk, there was about a 24-hour period of which I was aware

in which people were generating these images of children. And Elon Musk, to my understanding

swiftly banned every single account that had done that. He does not seem to be messing around when

it comes to kids. Has Elon Musk done enough to reassure the British government? Frankly, Bev

I think that's an impossible task. Because what the British government wants isn't a reasonable

safe online discursive environment for women or whatever it claims. If the British government

cared about women's safety, it would have acted differently on grooming gangs. What the British

government wants is the ability to curate the public square to suppress political viewpoints

it dislikes. And that is why it has targeted X for a potential ban, even though other AI widgets

afford similar capabilities. X has a political valence that the British government is antagonistic

to, doesn't like. And that's what's really going on here. Nigel Farage called the UK's move appalling

The thought of banning X from a government that been attacking free speech and creating a two society in our country frankly is appalling Look this feature clearly is horrible in every way distasteful sick I get all of that

I know that X today have made some changes to say only paying subscribers can use the service

X will need to go further, but the thought of banning platforms

I mean, what is happening in 21st century Britain? And then the follow-up

You've supported victims of grooming gangs and sexual-based violence. will you also take a stand against X as it is allowing these degrading images on their platform

Look, I think the whole grooming gangs scandal, and here we are in London where it's yet to be uncovered

in the opinion of Reform UK. Of course, what is happening with this capacity on X is monstrous

But banning X is not the answer. Talking to them and saying, we can't live with this, that's the way forward

And then finally, we've seen on X as well some quite abusive comments to Layla Cunningham

And I just wondered what your view is on that specifically. Yeah, I'm afraid that Layla has had to endure quite a high degree of really quite unpleasant racist abuse

It's horrible. It's nasty. I have spoken to her about it and said, look, just ignore it

Keep going. Keep doing what you're doing. I'm afraid X is a free speech platform

There are many things that are said on it that are deeply offensive, but that doesn't mean it should be banned

Despite the outcry, the EU ploughed on, saying not only would it be investigating Grock, but also the algorithm

Today we're also extending our ongoing investigation into X's recommender system. Why? Because X has announced just last week

that Grock will now be powering X's recommender system. Here again, X has not properly assessed such risk

And seeing the latest incidents with Grock, Such development needs to be carefully assessed

Elon Musk took 2X to make light of the European hysteria shortly before the probe was announced

Nick Dunning, GB News