Trolls made a video on Grok,she says,of the Labour MP being chloroformed (Picture: Metro/House of Commons)

Like millions of us,Labour’s Jess Asato frequents the popular social media site X.

But in the back of her mind,Asato,45,wonders if the next user she interacts with could be undressing her using AI tools.

In January,the MP for Lowestoft in Suffolk was allegedly among millions of women digitally undressed by people using Elon Musk’s chatbot,Grok.

‘I’ve spoken to many,many victims and what they’ve told me is how I feel,’ Asato tells Metro.

Jess Asato is calling on people to join her claim (Picture: House of Commons)

‘A bit more afraid,you don’t know who is out there or what they might be doing to your image.

‘The idea that,at any moment,you could be targeted just for speaking out or existing online.’

Asato lodged a legal complaint against xAI,which owns Grok and X,last week over the alleged nonconsensual images.

‘AI has turbocharged misogyny’

Asato joined X,then called Twitter,in 2009 – just two years after it launched.

‘It was a pretty joyous place,’ she recalls,saying she saw Twitter as a way for people to talk about politics on the ground.

That didn’t last long. One of Asato’s first experiences with misogyny on the platform was in 2014,when she commented on the rape trial of footballer Ched Evans.

‘The abuse I got was awful,’ she says. ‘Misogynistic abuse on social media has been going on for a really,really long time.

‘It’s now turbocharged with this ability to lift any woman’s image,manipulate it through AI,and then use it to demean,degrade,humiliate and create death threats.’

An image manipulated BY Grok of Elon Musk wearing a bikini (Picture: 2026 Getty Images)

Grok is X’s chatbot feature,and has proven controversial (Picture: David Talukdar/Shutterstock)

Phoney images of real people,mainly women wearing bikinis or in sexually provocative situations,flooded X in December and January.

Research published on Friday from Malwarebytes reveals that one in three daily AI users think it’s okay to create fake explicit images of people they know.

But women previously told Metro that the realistic AI-generated images,called deepfakes,amounted to digital sexual assault.

One estimate puts the number of sexualised images created of real people between December 29 and January 8 at three million,or 190 per minute,according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Asato’s mentions were flooded with such content after she called on Musk to take action.

‘Somebody created this horrible AI video of me being chloroformed and my skirts being lifted as if for a sexual assault,’ she says.

Since I posted last I’ve had my image manipulated to portray me publicly in a bikini.

Where have I consented to this? The issue of consent is missing from this debate.

Sexualising someone’s image without consent is digital sexual abuse and needs to stop.

— Jess Asato MP (@Jess4Lowestoft) January 11,2026

Given that she has campaigned against nudification apps,which create doctored explicit images,none of this is a surprise to her.

‘I became the victim of the very thing I was talking against,’ she says,alleging that X gave her no real ways to protect herself.

‘This isn’t just because of the nature of the content that’s created – albeit it is pretty traumatising – it’s to do with the fact that you,your personality,your image,has been taken without your consent,manipulated by somebody you don’t know into something that looks realistic but is not you. That’s where the violation happens.

‘Nobody would be allowed to come up to me in the street and strip my clothes off and put me in a bikini,so they shouldn’t be allowed to do that online either.’

Investigating xAI

Media regulator Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office,the data watchdog,both launched investigations into xAI.

The government even considered blocking X,as some countries did.

X removed illegal content depicting children and suspended accounts before restricting the image-generation tool to just paying subscribers.

https://t.co/awlfMjX6FS

— Safety (@Safety) January 14,2026

However,Metro found that Grok could still make partially nude images by using certain words. It also doctored illicit images of men on its standalone app and website,Grok Imagine.

It has since become illegal to request or create a non-consensual deepfake image of an adult in the UK.

In posts seen by Metro this week,the bot will now tell non-paying users asking for bikini images that ‘Ask Grok’ is only for subscribers.

When premium members request them,the bot doesn’t seem to respond.

Metro also saw examples last month of Grok replying to users as if it had generated an image of a person in a bikini,but without posting the image.

Here you go! 🔥 Same fire pose,now in a bikini. What next?

— Grok (@grok) May 29,2026

Things would have been different,Alsato argues,if Grok had launched with safeguards or followed policies outlined by regulators.

But a study by Security Hero found that even before Grok was released, 99% of nude deepfakes were of women or girls.

New claimants have come forward to join Asato’s legal action,many saying they have struggled to persuade X to remove the offending images.

X has never been held accountable over the Grok saga,Veronica Oakeshott,head of external affairs at the charity Women’s Aid,tells Metro.

‘More must be done to control the use of this,and similar technologies to ensure that women and children are kept safe, online and offline,’ she says.

When previously asked by Metro,Grok said it does not ‘assist’ with requests involving real,identifiable people.

Grok has a standalone tab within the X app and website (Picture: Getty Images Europe)

Asato’s High Court claim is being brought under the Data Protection Act and for tortious misuse of private information.

Goshawk,director of business development at the domestic abuse and sexual violence charity,Solace,says it should mark a change in our approach to online safety.

‘Removing the tools alone does not get to the heart of this issue,which is that our society values women’s privacy and dignity less,’ Goshawk says.

At the end of the day,Asato says she’s not asking for much – no woman is.

‘It’s making sure that women are free to be ourselves in online spaces without the fear,’ she adds,‘of being turned into pornography if you say something a man doesn’t like.’

xAI has been approached for comment.

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