My photos have been sexualised online – but I’ve escaped Grok

‘I don’t want this to come across as weird, but I found your photos on a porn site and I’m not sure you know about it.’

In 2021, a follower on Twitter (before it was changed to X) sent me this startling message.

At first, I was confused – I assumed he had the wrong person, or was pulling my leg. I couldn’t make sense of how or why any of my photos would be on porn sites.

I asked for a link, which sent me to a gallery on a well-known x-rated site, which had multiple photos of me from my Instagram account, all clothed and simply posed, with sexualised and racist comments under them. 

I looked at the first comment on the first image I saw of myself: ‘I would love to r*** that p***’.

Apparently, on this site, a user can upload galleries of photos that everyone has access to – and this random user, unknown to me, chose to use my Instagram photos. 

I had become sexualised without my knowledge or consent.

I was disgusted and felt violated. A feeling of dread filled me, and my anxiety spiked. I couldn’t stop thinking about what people were doing while looking at my photos.

I feel that same sense of horror when I see what’s happening over at X today, with Grok’s AI image generator coming under fire for stripping women, men and children of their clothes for the pleasure of sick, twisted people. 

I’m glad I left that horror of a site in April last year – by then, it was a cesspool of racism, far-right misinformation and the kind of bad AI and offensive caption combination that you might normally see forwarded from a dodgy uncle. 

If I was still on X, it would have just been another place for people to misuse my images and sexualise me, but this time these perverts would have the ability to strip me.

I urge anyone still on the site to join me in quitting, and I urge the government to really consider the nuclear option of banning X in the UK. 

It’s getting so bad over at Xai that Grok has officially been banned in Malaysia and Indonesia, with an investigation being announced by the media regulator OFCOM into the safety concerns posed by X.

Multiple people, especially women, have reported that X users have sexualised them using Grok – and the most agonising part is seeing it happen in real time. The way these users create these images is by replying to your original post and @’ing Grok – so their prompt and your sexualised image ends up in your timeline.

You have to watch while someone takes off your clothes – and for many of these sick individuals that’s clearly part of the thrill. 

I can’t imagine something so violating, and I’ve found myself not just on porn sites, but also on websites like 4chan. 

After I was first told about my photos on that initial site, I immediately messaged the customer service team, with a link to the user profile, all his galleries and any others I could find. 

They apologised and immediately removed the content and that particular user.

But I couldn’t help thinking about all the other users, galleries, images, comments. That user could just create a new profile. Part of me knew that there were still photos of me somewhere online, and someone was violating me.

Despite having quit X, I still went on the site via a friend’s account and searched my name last week, out of fear that someone had done it to me, had given me the ‘Grok’ treatment. Part of me didn’t want to know, and part of me did, so I can report it to the police – X themselves would have done nothing.

Luckily, I found nothing attached to my name, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. There are people out there, pleasuring themselves over non-consensual sexualised images of women, who watch it happen.

But it’s not just women and sometimes men who are experiencing this – what’s really sickening is Grok is undressing children for users who are creating these prompts.

And Elon Musk has done nothing to stop it, other than offer it to X users paying a fee.

In fact, his response was that banning Grok or X was ‘censorship’ and that it suppresses ‘free speech’. He said all this while posting an AI image of Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a bikini.

I am relieved I saw the sickness of X earlier and managed to escape it before it violated me. 

There was little of value left there – although it was a place I formed many friendships, back when it was called Twitter. I got freelance work, writing gigs and opportunities I wouldn’t have found elsewhere. 

But now, Twitter, X, Grok, – it must be shot into the sun, bursting into flames like one of Musk’s misfiring rockets.

We should not be trying to save a platform that is owned by a mewling  manchild who doesn’t understand the importance of reporting and banning illegal pedophilic or sexualised material, just so he can continue to be famous.

I escaped Grok, but millions of people are still at risk.

The site is beyond reform, beyond redemption.

It’s time for a ban.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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