By Lianne Kolirin, CNN

London (CNN) — The European Union has launched a wide-reaching investigation into Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot on X following global outrage over its ability to generate sexually explicit images, including of children.

The scandal erupted at the end of last year when the AI chatbot churned out a barrage of digitally undressed images of women and children in response to requests from users.

The global outcry that followed was met by an initial announcement by X that the tool would be limited to paying subscribers, but the company eventually prevented all users from using Grok to create images of real people in revealing clothing.

Announcing the investigation in a press notice, the European Commission said the investigation would examine whether the tech platform “properly assessed and mitigated risks associated with the deployment of Grok’s functionalities into X in the EU.”

Henna Virkkunen, executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy in the EU, said in the press notice: “Sexual deepfakes of women and children are a violent, unacceptable form of degradation.

“With this investigation, we will determine whether X has met its legal obligations… or whether it treated rights of European citizens – including those of women and children – as collateral damage of its service.”

The-CNN-Wire
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This is a developing story and will be updated.