{"id":6873,"date":"2026-02-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/?p=6873"},"modified":"2026-02-12T16:15:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:15:50","slug":"musks-x-faces-police-raids-investigations-in-france-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/inter\/2026\/02\/18\/musks-x-faces-police-raids-investigations-in-france-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk\u2019s X faces police raids, investigations in France, UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Spiro Kass<\/em><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

France began investigating the platform last year with concerns of algorithm manipulation and that X could be used for foreign interference. When the company\u2019s AI chatbot, Grok, allegedly produced \u201cHolocaust denial claims\u201d in November, the investigation was expanded. Grok allegedly claimed that the Germans used gas chambers for \u201cdisinfection with Zyklon B against typhus.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/span>\u201cmanifestly illicit.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The investigation has also expanded to address concerns about fake sexualised images of real women and children, known as \u201cdeepfakes\u201d, produced by Grok. The European Commission launched an investigation into X last month focused on these images.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The French government alleges the social media app\u2019s \u201ccomplicity\u201d in all these aspects, and in the circulation of pornographic material of children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201ca political vendetta against Americans.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

British independent privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner\u2019s Office (ICO), has started pursuing its own investigation into X\u2019s \u201cprocessing of personal data\u201d used to create sexualised images of people. According to the ICO, British data law states that the creation of deepfakes must be subject to \u201cappropriate safeguards.\u201d 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\u2019s revenue or 18 million pounds – \u201cwhatever is greater.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

AI-generated photo and video content has had an increasingly large presence online, with sexualised deepfakes portraying real people alarming governments across the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

British Secretary of Technology Liz Kendall said that victims of deepfakes \u201cwill not accept any delay\u201d in Ofcom\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201cpolitical attack,\u201d 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 \u201cany excuse for censorship.\u201d X\u2019s Global Government Affairs team also posted a statement, saying the raid \u201ccircumvents due process\u201d and is \u201can abusive act of law enforcement theatre.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The founder of the messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, also criticised the French actions, labeling France as \u201cnot a free country.\u201d 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\u2019 data with the authorities if they have search warrants or \u201cother legal requests.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 France began investigating the platform last year with concerns of algorithm manipulation and that X could be used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":6875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[1273,581,1683,1019,776,1680,1026,1179,1682,1681,1020,1107,1021],"wf_post_folders":[247],"class_list":{"0":"post-6873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-inter","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-deepfakes","11":"tag-elon-musk","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-grok","14":"tag-holocaust","15":"tag-international","16":"tag-ofcom","17":"tag-telegram","18":"tag-twitter","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-x"},"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Gaudie Staff","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/gaudie-staff\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/54349817858_c3835f4ff2_o-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["International<\/a>"],"unlinked":["International<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["antisemitism<\/a>","Artificial intelligence<\/a>","deepfakes<\/a>","Elon Musk<\/a>","France<\/a>","grok<\/a>","holocaust<\/a>","international<\/a>","ofcom<\/a>","telegram<\/a>","Twitter<\/a>","United Kingdom<\/a>","X<\/a>"],"unlinked":["antisemitism<\/span>","Artificial intelligence<\/span>","deepfakes<\/span>","Elon Musk<\/span>","France<\/span>","grok<\/span>","holocaust<\/span>","international<\/span>","ofcom<\/span>","telegram<\/span>","Twitter<\/span>","United Kingdom<\/span>","X<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 months ago","modified":"Updated 6 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 18 February 2026","modified":"Updated on 12 February 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 18 February 2026 12:00","modified":"Updated on 12 February 2026 16:15"},"featured_img_caption":"Photograph: Gage Skidmore from Flickr.","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6873"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6876,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6873\/revisions\/6876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6873"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=6873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}