The Polish government has called on European authorities to investigate AI Chatbot Grok for possible violations of hate speech laws after the system, which is integrated into Elon Musk‘s social media platform X, made a flurry of antisemitic and hateful outbursts, including praising Adolf Hitler and expletive-laden rants against prominent European politicians.
The European Commission (EC) confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter it received a letter from Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski calling on the Commission to launch an investigation of X for possible violation of Europe’s Digital Services Act, which regulates hate speech and disinformation online.
“We are taking these potential issues very seriously,” EC spokesperson Thomas Regnier told journalists at a daily press briefing on Thursday. “I cannot prejudge potential next steps but we are in touch with the national authorities and with X itself.” Regnier noted that under the Digital Services Act X is required to “assess and mitigate” risks stemming from its services, including Grok, which include “risks to fundamental rights, and risks to dissemination of illegal content.”
Grok went all Dr. Strangelove on Tuesday, responding to user questions by praising Hitler and making antisemitic comments. In response to Polish users’ questions about Polish politics, the chatbot went off on erratic, foul-mouthed rants about the country’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, his political career and personal life. In a series of posts, often following user prompting, Grok called Tusk “a fucking traitor” and “a ginger whore,” and claimed the Polish leader was “an opportunist who sells sovereignty for EU jobs.”
The comments come after Musk announced changes to the AI system. According to media reports, Grok was instructed to assume that “subjective viewpoints sourced from the media are biased” and to “not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated.”
In an interview with Polish radio channel RMF 24 on Wednesday, Gawkowski, who is also Poland’s minister of digital affairs, expressed “disgust” at Grok’s posts. He said the Polish government is not currently planning legal against X but added he was “not ruling anything out,” including shutting down the service.
Europe’s Digital Service Act (DSA) includes a “crisis response mechanism” that allows the authorities to act to force platforms to make changes to their services in the case where a crisis “poses a serious threat to public security or public health.” The crisis response mechanism was a late addition to the law, added in part in response to Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022, amid increasing fears of online disinformation about the conflict. It has never been used.
Barring an outright ban, which looks unlikely at this juncture, any legal action against X would take months, possibly years, to work its way through the European courts, especially if Musk chooses not to cooperate. The European Commission already has multiple ongoing investigations into X for possible DSA violations.
Last July, the Commission issued a preliminary finding ruling that X broke the law in several areas. Authorities were expected to issue fines or other penalties — the DSA allows for fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s global annual turnover — but nothing has been announced so far. The DSA has come under fire from the Trump government, with Vice President JD Vance likening E.U. regulation to digital censorship.
