WASHINGTON, Jan 14 — A coalition of women's groups, tech watchdogs, and progressive activists is calling on Alphabet owner Google and Apple to remove the social media site X (formerly Twitter) and its related chatbot Grok from their app stores.
In open letters published on Wednesday, the coalition accused the Elon Musk-owned apps of generating illegal content that violates both companies' terms of service.
The push, whose backers include the feminist group UltraViolet, the National Organisation for Women, the liberal group MoveOn, and the parent advocacy group ParentsTogether Action, is aimed at piling pressure on Musk after Grok began generating sexually charged, degrading, or violent images of women and children.
"We are really imploring Apple and Google to take this extremely seriously. They are enabling a system in which thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people, particularly women and children, are being sexually abused through the help of their own app stores," said UltraViolet's campaign director Jenna Sherman to Reuters ahead of the letter's release.
X did not return a message seeking comment on the letter. Its parent company, xAI, which powers Grok, responded with the words, "Legacy Media Lies." Google and Apple have not responded to repeated messages seeking comment on X and Grok.
Scrutiny continues to build after X was flooded with hyper-realistic images of women and minors in skimpy clothing at the turn of the new year.
Malaysia and Indonesia have already banned Grok for explicit content, while authorities in Europe and the United Kingdom have launched investigations or demanded answers.
Separately, some organisations and leaders are pulling back from X. On Tuesday, the American Federation of Teachers announced it was quitting the social network over indecent images of children produced by Grok.
While X has adjusted the chatbot's behaviour so that images Grok generates, or edits, are not posted to the public timeline, a Reuters test of Grok on Tuesday showed it was still generating bikini-clad versions of people's photographs on demand.
Sherman said while Apple and Google both claim to take child protection seriously, their treatment of X would reveal "what their values actually are in practice."
