Women’s Aid quits Twitter as AI scandal esaclates

Women’s Aid has become the latest organisation to quit Twitter, amid an escalating scandal involving Grok.

Grok, Twitter’s AI, has been used to produce child sexual abuse material in recent days, and Women’s Aid have said they are ceasing usage of the platform as of January 8th.

Women’s Aid, a national organisation working to prevent and address the impact of domestic violence and abuse, including coercive control in Ireland, said they were no longer using the service and have set up a Bluesky account.

Sarah Benson, Women’s Aid CEO, said “the organisation has watched the increased levels of unchecked hate, misogyny, racism and anti-LGBTI+ content on the platform with growing unease and concern.”

“The current scandal, which has seen the creation and sharing of AI deepfakes, non-consensual intimate imagery, and production of child sexual abuse material by X’s own AI Grok, in breach of the platform’s own guidelines and regulations, is a tipping point.”

Benson said, “this online violence against women and children – especially girls – has often devastating real life impacts and we no longer view it as appropriate to use such a platform to share our work.

She noted “this has not been an easy decision,” as Women’s Aid set up a Twitter account in 2009, the early days of the platform.

“We have engaged with and informed our supporters of the prevalence and impact of domestic abuse, promote our frontline support services to those affected and push for positive social change.”

She said, “we firmly believe that social media platforms have a crucial role to play in a healthy society, providing crucial townhall spaces for thoughtful, respectful, constructive and positive dialogue.”

“By leaving we acknowledge that we are ceding the stage to the malign actors, and bots who will continue to overrun the space, creating and spreading disinformation and other harmful content with effective impunity. However, as an organisation working to end violence against women and children, we balance the costs with any benefits to our continued engagement in this space and find we can no longer tolerate this situation.”

The Women’s Aid CEO said “while we have reduced leverage on this platform, we call on Governments and Regulators in both Ireland and at EU level to act swiftly and decisively to create effective accountability, legislation and regulation to ensure companies must have guardrails that protect truth, and prevent harm so that in the future any user can use Twitter, and any online platform safely.”