Bedford Borough Council is to review its use of social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, after concerns were raised about an artificial intelligence tool linked to the site being used to generate sexualised images of children.
At a Full Council meeting on Wednesday, 14 January, Green councillor Paul Edmonds (Castle and Newnham) asked the Conservative administration to reconsider whether X was an appropriate platform for the council to use, given its safeguarding responsibilities.
He said there had been “serious reports” that Grok, the AI system integrated with X, had been used to create “deeply concerning content” including sexualised images of children, “some as young as four”, and to generate fake nude images of women as a form of online attack.
“I’ve raised the risks of social media and online misogyny in the past,” he said.
“Given the council’s safeguarding duties and responsibilities to maintain public trust, would the administration please consider reviewing the continued use of Twitter/X as an official channel?”
Mayor Tom Wootton (Conservative) said he shared concerns about how the platform was being used.
“This use of social media worries me,” he told councillors, “It concerns me, and it is something that I think all councillors here will be very concerned with.”
Read: Who’s who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter (Financial Times)
He said he would ask that the issue be added to the relevant committee’s agenda and request that the chief executive write to all councillors about their social media use.
Councillor Edmonds said he welcomed the Mayor’s commitment to look into the matter. “I think it is important for safeguarding and the reputation of the council,” he said.
Grok under scrutiny
Since the council meeting, xAI, the company behind Grok, has said it has withdrawn the tool’s “nudification” feature following public and political pressure.
The BBC reported that the change followed evidence that the feature was being used to create sexualised images of women and children, including minors.
Read: X to stop Grok AI from undressing images of real people after backlash (BBC)
The Guardian later reported that sexually explicit AI-generated images remained possible on the platform despite the removal of the specific tool.
Read: X still allowing users to post sexualised images generated by Grok AI tool (The Guardian)
After the meeting, Councillor Edmonds told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that national coverage of Grok’s nudification tool showed why a review of the council’s presence on X was necessary.
“What is most damaging here is not simply an issue of moderation, but that this capability existed at all,” he said.
“It represents a failure of design, testing and governance at the highest levels.
“Withdrawing from the platform will not fix the problems, but staying without consideration ignores it and leaves the council potentially sleepwalking through an issue that many residents, especially parents, are rightly worried about.”
He said he was not calling for an automatic closure of the council’s X account, but wanted the council to formally consider whether continued use of the platform aligned with its safeguarding duties.
Bedford Independent left ‘X’ in 2023
The debate at Borough Hall comes just over two years after the Bedford Independent deleted its own X account, citing growing concerns about misinformation, fake news and extremist content on the platform.
Read: Bedford Independent deletes X/Twitter account after removal of misinformation reporting tool
In September 2023, the founders of Progress Publishing decided to remove the Bedford Independent’s account after reports that X would no longer allow users to flag posts that might contain misleading information.
At the time, the publisher said priority “must always be fact-based reporting” and that the ongoing removal of safety features had made the platform “unsafe” for responsible media organisations.
The decision, believed to be a first for a UK regional news title after Elon Musk’s changes to the platform’s rules, followed wider concerns about the rollback of tools designed to tackle harassment and disinformation.
The current review will now consider whether Bedford Borough Council should continue to use X as an official communication channel in light of the latest concerns about Grok and the platform’s role in hosting AI-generated sexualised imagery.
By John Guinn, Local Democracy Reporter and
Paul Hutchinson, Bedford Independent
