Spain Orders Criminal Investigation Into X, Meta, and TikTok Over Alleged AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material

The Spanish government called for prosecutors to investigate the companies for allegedly spreading AI-generated child sexual abuse material. The Spanish government has called for an investigation into social media giants X, Meta, and TikTok over their alleged role in producing and spreading AI-generated child sexual abuse material. "The Council of Ministers will invoke Article 8 of the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecution Service to request that it investigate the crimes that X, Meta and TikTok may be committing through the creation and dissemination of child pornography by means of their AI," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote on X on Tuesday. Sánchez accused the platforms of “attacking the mental health, dignity and rights of our sons and daughters,” saying that “the impunity of the giants must end.”The call comes as Spain moves to crack down on social media more broadly. While speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai earlier this month, Sánchez announced plans to ban social media for kids under the age of 16, among a series of other measures aimed at social media platforms. The proposed ban, which still needs parliamentary approval, comes after Australia became the first country in the world to implement such a prohibition in December, and as other nations including France and Denmark have made moves to enact similar measures.Read more: Where Efforts to Ban Social Media for Kids are Taking PlaceSánchez criticized tech giants at the time for failing to censor—or even generating—illegal sexualized content, and called social media “a failed state, a place where laws are ignored, and crime is endured, where disinformation is worth more than truth, and half of users suffer hate speech.”AdvertisementTech billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X, has called the efforts to ban social media for users under a certain age “madness” and described Sánchez as “a tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain” following his remarks in Dubai. Meta declined to comment on Sánchez’s call for prosecutors to investigate the companies, but told TIME that its AI tools are trained not to comply with requests to generate nude images; that it prohibits so-called “nudify” apps, which can be used to create explicit images of individuals, from advertising on its platforms; and that it has strict policies against child exploitation. A spokesperson for TikTok said in a statement to TIME: "[Child sexual abuse material] is abhorrent and categorically prohibited on our platform. TikTok has robust systems in place to thwart attempts to exploit or harm young people, and we continue to prioritize and invest in advanced technologies to stay one step ahead of bad actors."AdvertisementTIME has reached out to X for comment.xAI’s Grok, an AI chatbot that can be used to generate and alter images, has in particular faced mounting scrutiny in recent months over the proliferation of sexualized AI-generated images. Following an update to the chatbot in December, the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that Grok had generated an estimated 3 million sexualized images, including 23,000 that seemed to show minors. X announced in January that it had introduced measures to prevent Grok from editing images of real people to show them in “revealing clothing.” But Reuters reported earlier this month that Grok was still generating sexualized images of people in response to prompts from users, including when users explicitly told the chatbot the people in question did not consent. xAI repeatedly responded to requests for comment on that finding that “Legacy Media Lies,” according to Reuters.AdvertisementOther European countries have also launched probes into X over Grok’s reported creation of sexually explicit content.Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced on Tuesday that it had formally opened an investigation into X for the apparent use of people’s personal data—including that of children—to produce “potentially harmful, non-consensual intimate and/or sexualised images.” X’s European headquarters is located in Dublin, which means the DPC acts as the lead supervisory body over the company for the European Union. The DPC stated in its press release that X had been notified of the investigation on Monday. DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said that the regulator “has commenced a large-scale inquiry” into X’s “compliance with some of their fundamental obligations” under the the General Data Protection Regulation, a sweeping EU data privacy law.The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, also opened an investigation into Grok’s alleged dissemination of illegal sexualized content on Jan. 26. AdvertisementThe previous month, the EU separately fined X roughly 120 million euros—the equivalent of roughly $140 million—for violations to its Digital Services Act, a landmark law that requires companies to regulate illicit content and disinformation on their platforms. Regulators said X’s blue checkmark system and ad database had been found to breach the law’s transparency requirements, and that the company imposed "unnecessary barriers" to researchers accessing public data.Re