U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer escalated his threats against Elon Musk¡¯s X on Monday, vowing to enforce a law that banned the sexualization of people¡¯s images without their consent and calling such content generated by Grok ¡°disgusting and shameful.¡±

From this week, the government will enforce the offense established in last year¡¯s Data Act, which made the creation of nonconsensual intimate images illegal. Starmer told members of Parliament on Monday, ¡°if X cannot control Grok, we will ¡ª and we¡¯ll do it fast because if you profit from harm and abuse, you lose the right to self regulate.¡±

Starmer accused X of protecting ¡°abusive users¡± instead of the women and children whose images have been exploited, describing it as a ¡°total distortion of priorities.¡±

Earlier on Monday, the U.K. joined a growing chorus of governments around the world taking action against the company for generating thousands of sexualized images of women and children in recent weeks. The U.K. communications regulator Ofcom launched a formal investigation into whether X, a subsidiary of xAI, breached British laws in allowing such content to be generated and shared on the platform. Such a finding may result in fines or restrictions on its service.

The government will also make the action a ¡°priority offense¡± in the Online Safety Act, meaning ¡°individuals are committing a criminal offense if they create or seek to create such content, including on X,¡± Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told the House of Commons on Monday. She also outlined plans to make nudification apps themselves illegal.

She called the images being created ¡°weapons of abuse¡± and condemned last week¡¯s move by X to restrict the image generation tool to paying users only as ¡°monetizing abuse¡± and ¡°insulting to victims.¡±

New measures added to the Crime and Policing Bill that¡¯s currently working its way through Parliament will ¡°make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual intimate images, targeting the problem at its source,¡± Kendall said.

The crackdown is not about restricting the freedom of speech, but rather about upholding British values and tackling violence against women and girls, according to the minister. She said the government would continue its own participation on X as a tool to reach its 19 million U.K. users, but understood calls by some Labour members of Parliament to withdraw from the platform.

She nevertheless added that the government would keep its participation ¡°under review.¡±