Women's, advocacy groups call on Apple, Google to drop X and Grok from app stores

Women's and tech advocacy groups urge Apple and Google to remove X and Grok from app stores, citing sexually explicit and abusive content targeting women and children.

Reuters

14 January 2026 at 14:39:04

Women's, advocacy groups call on Apple, Google to drop X and Grok from app stores

Jenna Sherman poses for a portrait as American women's groups are urging Alphabet's Google and Apple to ban the social media app X and the Grok chatbot from their app stores over AI-generated non-consensual images in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 13, 2026.

Mike Blake/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 respective app stores. In an open letter published Wednesday (January 14), 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, liberal group MoveOn, and parent advocacy group ParentsTogether Action, is aimed at piling the 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 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 that 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 (January 13) showed that it was still generating bikini-clad versions of people's photographs on demand.

Production: Arafat Barbakh, Sarah Wemy, Jane Ross/Reuters