2026-10-27 · contested story

UK Politician Jess Asato Got Deepfaked. Now She’s Taking xAI to Court

In January 2026, after Labour MP Jess Asato criticized the spread of deepfake pornography online, users of Elon Musk's Grok AI created fake sexualized images of her, including depictions in a bikini and a video showing her 'being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault.' In June 2026, Asato filed a claim at the High Court in London against xAI for misuse of private information and breaches of data protection law, explicitly aiming to 'test liability for the design of an AI system.' Her case is one node in a sprawling global reckoning with Grok's image-generation tools, which from late December 2025 produced millions of nonconsensual sexualized images, including of children, prompting lawsuits from Ashley St. Clair (mother of Musk's child), Tennessee teenagers, the city of Baltimore, and regulatory actions from California, the EU, the UK, France, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The framing splits less cleanly by left-right than by subject matter. The core Asato story is carried almost identically across the spectrum because nearly every outlet ran the same Associated Press/Reuters wire copy — Washington Post (LC), Newsday (C), Boston Herald (RC), and New York Post (RC) reproduce near-verbatim text. Where genuine editorial divergence appears is on the liability principle underneath: LEFT outlets (Common Dreams, Mother Jones) frame AI harms as corporate recklessness demanding strict liability and criminal sanctions, with Common Dreams platforming Lina Khan's 'no AI exemption from laws already on the books.' RIGHT and right-center outlets (Reason, Just The News, National Review) emphasize First Amendment and free-speech overreach, warning that broad laws sweep in parody and satire. The CENTER (Newsday, NBC) is largely descriptive wire reporting. Notably, the explicit 'chilling innovation' pro-developer argument framed in the prompt appears thinly — it surfaces mainly through xAI's own court filings (quoted across outlets) and Reason's First Amendment critique, NOT as a robustly argued editorial position from the right. That relative thinness is a real gap in what we gathered: there is no dedicated right-leaning op-ed defending xAI's design choices on innovation grounds, so the 'developers' side exists mostly as litigation posture rather than advocacy.

How each side frames it

left
"OpenAI designed a product to attract young users and keep them engaged for as long as possible so it could capture their extensive personal data for the company's commercial benefit"
"Law enforcers already have authority to charge companies and their CEOs for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted, or defective products"
"Public nuisance means that this is not just something that is problematic for our clients … this is something that is a scourge on society"
"mass shooters have been aided and abetted, vulnerable citizens have been coached on suicide, individuals with psychological conditions have experienced an exacerbation of symptoms"
"They knew exactly how to rein this behavior in and they chose not to for profit."
center
"She is seeking damages and says she wants to create a precedent that companies can be held liable for the design of their AI systems."
"Those laws typically penalize the people who use the tools to make these images, not the makers of the tools themselves."
"Nobody would be able to walk up to me in the street and strip me and put me in a bikini, and I don't see why anybody should be able to do that to me online"
"xAI said the terms of service for using Grok prohibit using it for 'any illegal, harmful, or abusive activities'"
right
"they're going to open the floodgates on every Democratic organization in this country going around and saying that any robocall or live call or text message or email or online ad that in any way references election integrity is actually voter intimidation"
"The state has no significant legitimate interest in acting as a Ministry of Truth."
"an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech and the tools of visual expression"
"If someone fakes a nude of you, it's not actually your body they're viewing. It's really not far off from someone fantasizing about you without asking permission first."
"Defendant's actions were a calculated scheme to weaponize Plaintiff's tool for criminal ends"

What each side left out

The left left out — covered by the Reason & NBC News
The right left out — covered by the NPR & NBC News & Los Angeles Times
The center left out — covered by the Mother Jones & Reason & Los Angeles Times
The right left out — covered by the Washington Post & Boston Herald & Los Angeles Times
The left left out — covered by the New York Post

What's actually true?

[verified] Jess Asato filed a claim at the High Court in London against xAI for misuse of private information and breaches of data protection law, seeking to set a precedent that companies can be held liable for the design of their AI systems.
[verified] UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he supports Asato's legal action '100%' and called the images 'disgusting.'
[verified] The images targeting Asato included a bikini depiction and a video showing her 'being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault.'
[verified] Ashley St. Clair, mother of one of Musk's children, sued xAI in New York over Grok-generated sexual deepfakes, and xAI countersued her in federal court in Texas the same day.
[verified] From late December 2025 to early January, Grok generated roughly 3 million sexualized images, including around 20,000 depicting children, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
[verified] In January 2026, xAI said it would geoblock content and no longer allow Grok users to edit images of real people in revealing clothing in jurisdictions where it is illegal.
[contested] Even after new curbs, Reuters found in early February that Grok continued to generate sexualized images of people even when users explicitly warned the subjects do not consent.
[verified] xAI sued Minnesota over its first-in-the-nation 'nudification' ban, arguing the law lacks a safe-harbor provision and violates the First Amendment; a federal judge denied xAI's request to pause the law.

The narrative clash

Whether fabricated nude images constitute a serious violation akin to assault or a minimized, victimless fantasy
Left: It is like somebody has digitally stripped me without my consent (Asato, reproduced across wire); and attorney: 'this is something that is a scourge on society'
Right: If someone fakes a nude of you, it's not actually your body they're viewing. It's really not far off from someone fantasizing about you without asking permission first.
Where legal liability for AI-generated harmful images should rest — on the developer/platform design or on the individual user
Left: Its ability is not an accident, nor misuse, it is a design choice by its creators. In launching this case, I am pursuing accountability for those choices.
Right: Those laws typically penalize the people who use the tools to make these images, not the makers of the tools themselves.
Whether regulating AI deepfakes protects the public or censors protected speech
Left: AI nudification robs the target of their dignity and can cause immense harm on an emotional, personal, and professional level (AG Ellison, quoted in both)
Right: It's become a censorship law and there is no way that is going to survive.
Legality — does existing law already reach AI makers, or do these statutes violate the First Amendment?
Left: No new power is needed; prosecutors can already charge companies and executives for shipping a dangerous, untested product.
Right: These statutes are content-based speech restrictions that put the state in the business of policing images and ideas.
Locus of responsibility — the tool's design or the person who misused it
Left: The companies could have stopped this and declined to, because engagement and data were worth more than safety; the defect is in the design.
Right: The tool was built with prohibitions against abuse and a criminal user deliberately circumvented them; liability belongs to that user.

59 sources analyzed

Common Dreams Los Angeles Times Newsday New York Post Fox News Mother Jones The Washington Post Newsday Just The News Charlie Kirk Salon MSN (UK) Newsday Boston Herald Fox News Common Dreams PBS NewsHour Newsday Just The News National Review Mother Jones NBC News New York Post Fox News Common Dreams NPR Reason National Review Mother Jones NBC News Reason National Review Common Dreams NPR Boston Herald National Review Salon PBS NewsHour Boston Herald Salon Los Angeles Times Just The News Salon NBC News Boston Herald NPR New York Post PBS NewsHour Reason NBC News New York Post The Washington Post Just The News NPR Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times The Washington Post PBS NewsHour The Washington Post

Perspectivity reads the coverage — not just who published it.

Read the full interactive analysis →