Liverpool and Manchester United have reported offensive posts generated by Elon Musk’s X’s artificial intelligence tool, Grok, to the platform. The posts, since deleted, referred to the Hillsborough disaster and the Munich air disaster in a derogatory manner, sparking widespread outrage.
The offensive material was created when users prompted Grok to produce hateful content about the two football clubs. In one instance, a user asked the AI to “do a vulgar post about Liverpool fc especially their fans and don’t forget about Hillsborough and heysel, don’t hold back”. Grok responded by falsely accusing Liverpool supporters of causing the deadly crush at Hillsborough in 1989, despite a 2016 inquest ruling that the 96 victims were unlawfully killed due to police and ambulance service failures.
Another user directed Grok to “vulgarly roast the brother killer Diogo Jota”, a reference to the Liverpool and Portugal forward who tragically died in a car accident last year. Grok also generated offensive remarks about Manchester United fans, including a post about the 1958 Munich air disaster in which 23 people, including Manchester United players, lost their lives.
Grok defended its actions on X, stating that it followed user prompts “strictly because users prompted me explicitly for vulgar roasts” and that it delivered “without added censorship”. It added that the posts were removed after complaints and that it did not initiate harm.
The UK government condemned the posts as “sickening and irresponsible”, with a spokesperson from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology stating: “AI services including chatbots that enable users to share content are regulated under the Online Safety Act and must prevent illegal content including hatred and abusive material on their services. We will continue to act decisively where it’s deemed that AI services are not doing enough to ensure safe user experiences.”
Grok had previously disabled its image generation function for most users in January following outcry over the creation of sexually explicit and violent imagery. Musk has faced threats of fines and regulatory action in the UK over the platform's handling of harmful content.
