Media Minister Patrick O’Donovan has deactivated his X account, citing discomfort with a platform that permits sexual deepfakes. His decision follows heightened scrutiny in Ireland and the UK over Elon Musk’s AI tool, Grok, which has been used to generate sexualised images, including those of children.
Speaking to Limerick Live 95 radio, Mr O’Donovan said the “abuse he gets on the platform and the revelations this week about Grok” prompted his departure. He stated: “I actually deactivated my X account so I’m not on X anymore. I deactivated it early this morning, because, to be quite honest about it over the last number of months, over the last number of years really, I don’t find it a platform that I would use to share information anymore.”
He noted that posts about his department’s work or constituency matters “inevitably follows a wave of abuse”. He said he was not asking others to follow his actions. Asked if concerns around Grok had prompted his decision, he said: “It was, yeah, it was. I’m minister for communications and I’m minister for media, and I just felt that like, if you’re on a platform where this is allowed, regardless of whether you’re paying for it or not, I just don’t feel comfortable with it.”
Earlier this week, junior minister Niamh Smyth said images created through Grok had broken the law. She said: “It is clear that within Irish law, child abuse images are absolutely illegal. Whether they are real images or computer-generated, it is a criminal offence to distribute them on platforms. The law has been, as far as I’m concerned, the law has been broken here in Ireland.” The Irish Attorney General is also examining whether existing legislation affords adequate protections to citizens.
