By Spiro Kass
French law enforcement authorities raided the offices of social media company X, which was taken over by Elon Musk in 2022, on Tuesday. European Union police force Europol joined the French in the operation.
France began investigating the platform last year with concerns of algorithm manipulation and that X could be used for foreign interference. When the company’s AI chatbot, Grok, allegedly produced “Holocaust denial claims” in November, the investigation was expanded. Grok allegedly claimed that the Germans used gas chambers for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus.”
The Auschwitz Memorial said that this AI output violated the rules of the platform. Holocaust denial is considered a crime in France and some French government ministers have reported these AI-generated claims to the French prosecution, describing them as “manifestly illicit.”
The investigation has also expanded to address concerns about fake sexualised images of real women and children, known as “deepfakes”, produced by Grok. The European Commission launched an investigation into X last month focused on these images.
The French government alleges the social media app’s “complicity” in all these aspects, and in the circulation of pornographic material of children.
Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X from May 2023 to July 2025, was summoned along with Musk for voluntary questioning scheduled for April 20th in Paris. Yaccarino has claimed that the French authorities are carrying out “a political vendetta against Americans.”
British independent privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), has started pursuing its own investigation into X’s “processing of personal data” used to create sexualised images of people. According to the ICO, British data law states that the creation of deepfakes must be subject to “appropriate safeguards.” The investigation is in conjunction with British state-backed media regulator Ofcom, which started its own investigation of X in January. According to the BBC, if X is found to have broken the law, Ofcom can issue a fine of 10% of the company’s revenue or 18 million pounds – “whatever is greater.”
AI-generated photo and video content has had an increasingly large presence online, with sexualised deepfakes portraying real people alarming governments across the world.
British Secretary of Technology Liz Kendall said that victims of deepfakes “will not accept any delay” in Ofcom’s investigation of the platform. Northern Irish politician Cara Hunter announced she was quitting X last month after being disappointed with the lack of protection for women online. Hunter had previously been targeted by a deepfake.
These investigations come at a time when media companies are growing increasingly wary of state power. Elon Musk, taking to X, referred to the actions of the French government as a “political attack,” and has interpreted the multiple legal investigations into his company as an attack on freedom of speech. Similarly, he characterised the United Kingdom Labour government as wanting “any excuse for censorship.” X’s Global Government Affairs team also posted a statement, saying the raid “circumvents due process” and is “an abusive act of law enforcement theatre.”
The founder of the messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, also criticised the French actions, labeling France as “not a free country.” Durov himself was arrested in France for an alleged lack of moderation on Telegram, but was let go after the platform agreed to share its users’ data with the authorities if they have search warrants or “other legal requests.”
