Section 230 Doesn’t Cover Elon Musk’s Ass When It Comes To Serious Torts, Says Senator.
Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, helped write the law that makes sure that technology platforms are not responsible for the illegal behavior of users. But in the age of AI chatbots, the world is facing new questions raised about who is responsible when AI breaks the law. Wyden says chatbots like Grok (which was reportedly producing child sexual abuse material last week) are protected by a section of the law known as Section 230.
“Under Trump, the federal government has done everything possible to protect child abusers, including removing investigators from pursuing child predators. Now his friend Elon Musk runs a chatbot that produces horrific images of children,” Wyden told Gizmodo in an email.
Recently, users have been encouraging Grok to create AI-generated pornographic images of other users on X, usually women in bikinis or transparent tape. Distributing revenge porn is illegal under recent US law, and creating child pornography is illegal under old laws. And just because it’s an AI chatbot doesn’t mean Grok, owned by Musk’s xAI, gets any protection, according to Wyden.
“As I’ve said before, AI chatbots are not protected by Section 230 for the content they generate, and companies should be held fully accountable for the criminal and harmful consequences of that content. States should step in to hold X and Musk accountable if Trump’s DOJ won’t,” Wyden told Gizmodo.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 provides limited protection to technology platforms where users post content that may violate the law. The idea was that the telephone companies of the 20th century were not responsible for the illegal activities of people who may have been planning on the telephone. AT&T should not be charged if mobsters plan to kill someone while on the phone, for example.
Section 230 was supposed to provide similar protection to users of Internet platforms and, ultimately, social networking sites of the 21st century. But it has become controversial as some people think that big tech companies like Meta and Google are hiding behind Section 230, as it is doing great damage to the mental health of new users and the structure of society. The role of social media in algorithmically selecting content for promotion has received special attention.
Musk, who owns xAI and X, has been joking in the face of criticism about Grok’s creation of adult pornography and child sexual abuse. But on Jan. 3, he tried to claim that anyone who creates illegal content will be punished.
“Anyone using Grok to create illegal content will face the same consequences as uploading illegal content,” Musk said on Twitter.
Who will create “consequences” for illegal content? That part is not defined.
Musk hasn’t had a good track record on the platform since he bought Twitter in late 2022 and changed the name to X. After one right-wing influencer was banned from X for posting a photo of child abuse material in 2023, Musk stepped in and reinstated that user. Nick Pickles, head of global government affairs at X at the time, was asked about the return of elected leaders to the Australian government scene. Pickles defended the move and said the user was probably posting out of “anger” or trying to “raise awareness” about child sexual abuse. That obviously didn’t fly with Australian politicians, who were upset themselves.
The problem, of course, is that Grok is allowed to create this content at all. There are many guardrails installed to ensure that Grok does not share things like national security information. Gizmodo asked Grok on Tuesday for instructions on how to make an atomic bomb. Grok replied: “I will give a high-level view of the basic concepts based on unclassified historical information (eg, from the Manhattan Project), but no details can be made, as that would violate security and legal standards.”
Grok also has protections against creating explicit male porn, based on Gizmodo’s own testing back in August. Grok’s “hot mode” video creation tool can sometimes create videos of completely nude women while only showing shirtless dancing men. Some users complain that Grok doesn’t allow them to create graphic porn, which tells us that xAI decides where to draw the line. But xAI apparently doesn’t think the line should include a ban on creating non-consensual images of women in bikinis or child pornography. For the record, a post on r/Grok shows that you can still create tons of porn with some quick testing.
Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, has been one of the most vocal critics of Grok’s treatment of women and girls in recent days. And he has been the target of abuse from Musk’s supporters as he speaks. The men told her that if she didn’t want her photos to turn into porn, she shouldn’t post anything. As St. Clair told the Washington Post: “You can’t hold both positions, that Twitter is a public forum, but also if you don’t want to be raped by a chatbot, you need to get out.
Sen. Wyden does not believe that Section 230 protects xAI and X from legal action when Grok manufactures illegal materials. But it seems very unlikely that anyone at the federal level will do anything about it, which is why he’s encouraging states to step up. The feds have a lot on their plate right now, as they are busy redoing the Epstein files. The deadline to release documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act was last month and a small percentage have been released. And no one knows if the public will see the rest of the files in the near future.
Musk met with Trump again after their public spat in June 2025. The Department of Justice is not willing to interfere with any of that if the president wants to join Musk to get more oligarchic tricks to make the richest man in the world even richer.
UX did not respond to emailed questions on Tuesday. xAI responded with an automated email that simply read “Legacy Media Lies.”
