February 3, 2026
Cops, Grok, and courtroom talk
X offices raided. French prosecutors investigate child abuse images & deepfakes
“Witch hunt” or “ban it now”? Internet splits as France swoops on X and calls in Musk
TLDR: France raided X’s Paris office and summoned Elon Musk over alleged deepfakes and illegal content, while the U.K. opened a privacy probe into Grok. Commenters split between “ban it now” and “government overreach,” with side debates about what a modern “raid” even looks like and whether all AIs are equally risky.
French prosecutors stormed X’s Paris office and asked Elon Musk to come in for questioning, lighting up the internet like a Christmas tree. The probe? Allegations that X and its AI chatbot Grok let sexualized deepfakes spread and even pushed into hate-speech territory—serious crimes under French law. X fired back on its own platform, calling the raid “law enforcement theater,” while the U.K.’s privacy watchdog announced its own investigation into how Grok used people’s data and whether it had guardrails to stop harmful images. Europol says it’s helping French authorities. Drama, meet spotlight.
The comments were a battlefield. One camp demanded the EU pull the plug entirely, saying Musk’s platform is “manipulated to destabilize Europe.” Another rolled its eyes, blaming a sensational headline and asking what a raid even looks like in 2026—“Did they seize the snack room? Copy the laptops? Subpoena the Gmail?” Others asked why X is singled out when “every AI can be tricked,” dismissing it as a political fishing expedition. Meanwhile, fact-checkers chimed in that France criminalizes Holocaust denial, context for why Grok’s now-deleted, later-corrected answers set off alarms.
Jokes flew too: “Press F to pay respects to the office Keurig,” and “They unplugged the mainframe (aka the reception printer).” But beneath the memes is a stark split—free speech vs. safety, overreach vs. responsibility. Read the AP report, the ICO note, and X’s clapback on X for the receipts.
Key Points
- •French prosecutors raided X’s Paris offices in a preliminary probe into alleged CSAM dissemination, sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity, and manipulation of automated systems.
- •Elon Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino were summoned for voluntary interviews on April 20; X employees were also called as witnesses.
- •The investigation began in January last year after a lawmaker’s report on biased algorithms and expanded following Grok’s problematic outputs, including Holocaust denial and sexualized deepfakes.
- •X denied the allegations, calling the raid law enforcement theater, while prosecutors said the goal is to ensure X’s compliance with French law; Europol is supporting the probe.
- •The UK ICO opened investigations into X and xAI over data processing for Grok and safeguards against generating harmful manipulated images, with potential penalties unspecified.