By Raphael Satter
WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A coalition of women's groups, tech watchdogs, and progressive activists is calling on Alphabet owner Google and Apple to remove the social media site X and its related chatbot, Grok, from their app stores.
In open letters published on Wednesday, the coalition accused the Elon Musk-owned apps of generating illegal content that violates both companies' terms of service.
The push, whose backers include the feminist group UltraViolet, the National Organization
for Women, the liberal group MoveOn, and the parent advocacy group ParentsTogether Action, is aimed at piling pressure on Musk after Grok began generating sexually charged, degrading, or violent images of women and children.
"We are really imploring Apple and Google to take this extremely seriously," Jenna Sherman, UltraViolet's campaign director, told Reuters ahead of the letter's release. "They are enabling a system in which thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people, particularly women and children, are being sexually abused through the help of their own app stores."
X did not return a message seeking comment on the letter. Its parent company, xAI, which powers Grok, responded with the words, "Legacy Media Lies." Google and Apple have not returned repeated messages seeking comment about X and Grok.
Scrutiny continues to build after X was flooded with hyper-realistic images of women and minors in skimpy clothing at the turn of the new year.
Malaysia and Indonesia have already banned Grok over the explicit content, while authorities in Europe and the United Kingdom have announced investigations or demanded answers.
Separately, some organizations and leaders are pulling back from X. On Tuesday, the American Federation of Teachers announced it was quitting the social network over indecent images of children produced by Grok.
While X has adjusted the chatbot's behavior so that images Grok generates or edits are not posted to the public timeline, a Reuters test of Grok on Tuesday showed it was still generating bikini-clad versions of people's photographs on demand.
Sherman said while Apple and Google both claim to take child protection seriously, their treatment of X would reveal "what their values actually are in practice."
(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Chris Reese)
