EVAW and 100+ organisations and campaigners stand with Jess Asato MP in lawsuit against xAI

Last week (3rd June 2026), Jess Asato MP launched legal action against xAI for to hold the company accountable for its role in the creation of non-consensual intimate images of her by users of its Grok tool. This is a significant development in the fight for greater tech accountability.

The case at the High Court seeks damages and also aims to establish an important legal precedent: that technology companies can be held responsible for the design and foreseeable harms of the systems they create.

100+ stand in solidarity with Jess Asato MP

Today, the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) and over 100 organisations and campaigners have sent a powerful public statement of support for Jess Asato and all survivors of deepfake abuse.

The statement says:

“We stand with Jess Asato and her incredibly brave legal action against xAI to deliver justice for the non-consensual sexualised images Grok created of her and back her calls for better safety by design.

We hope that this will be a first step towards accountability for those responsible and that it will open a path to redress for the many, many other victims who have suffered.

Researchers found that in an 11-day period — from the start of December 29th 2025 to the end of January 8th 2026 — Grok generated an estimated 3 million nonconsensual sexualised images of women and children, which were widely disseminated on X, causing untold harm.

To date, there has been no justice for any of the victims. We believe that xAI must be held legally accountable to ensure that no AI tool or social media platform can ever repeat such awful harms against women, children, or anyone.”

Holding tech companies accountable: an uphill battle

EVAW and its partners have long campaigned for a rights-based approach to AI regulation and robust, holistic action to prevent violence against women and girls online. We have consistently highlighted the risks posed by AI-generated sexual abuse and the need to prevent harm before it occurs, through robust risk assessments, safety-by-design requirements, and meaningful accountability for technology companies.

In January 2025, we successfully changed the law when the government announced a new criminal offence for creating and sharing non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes. This law came into force in February 2026, and was swiftly followed by the announcement of a new law requiring tech companies to take down intimate images shared without a victims consent within 48 hours of being flagged. 

Rebecca Hitchen, Head of Policy & Campaigns at the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said:

“Jess Asato’s brave decision to take legal action against X over its role in creating and distributing non-consensual deepfake images is a powerful attempt at accountability, and we applaud her courage. But it also exposes the failure of governments around the world to stop Big Tech profiting from the abuse of millions of women and children, and the major gaps in regulation.

Our government should not be shying away from holding X to account and securing justice for victims of deepfake abuse. But, as always, the burden has fallen on individual women and survivors of this abuse to take on these companies alone. We have seen this firsthand through our work supporting survivors who fought tooth and nail to make creating non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes a criminal offence, and hold the regulator Ofcom to account for investigating platforms where these images are traded. The cost of doing business in the UK must include safety by design at every stage, and our government must demand this of tech companies.”

ENDS