Tag Archives: internet regulation

Mathew on Monday: why X must be held to account over Grok

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 12th January 2026 - 5:57 pm

I was on GB News early this morning, setting out why I agree with Ed Davey that X should be suspended, pending an investigation into Grok.

Some readers may not relish the idea of me appearing on GB News. It is a channel many liberals feel uncomfortable with, and not without reason, but liberal voices simply cannot afford to be absent from platforms we find awkward, or from debates where the loudest contributions too often go unchallenged. If we genuinely believe in open argument, democratic accountability, and the contest of ideas, which I hope we do, then we have to be prepared to show up-not just where it is easy to do so, but where it is difficult.

That is why I’m grateful to have appeared on The Late Show Live with Ben Leo a little after midnight, debating with the IEA’s Reem Ibrahim to make the calm, liberal case for why X should indeed be temporarily suspended until it gets its house in order over Grok.

Predictably, the response from some was to cry “censorship” and invoke “free speech” as though it were an absolute trump card.

But liberalism is not libertarianism and has never meant free speech without responsibility. Free expression does not exist in a vacuum. It sits alongside other liberal values: consent, dignity, accountability, and the rule of law. When powerful actors ignore these values, it is not illiberal to respond – it is necessary.

At the heart of the current controversy is Grok, X’s AI system, and the way it has been rolled out without adequate safeguards, transparency, or ethical restraint. This is not about being hostile to technology. Liberalism does not fear innovation. But it does insist that power – whether political, corporate, or technological – is exercised responsibly and is subject to scrutiny.

What makes the Grok issue particularly disturbing is what it allows in practice. Users are able to generate/change/distort images of real people (of all ages) without any meaningful form of consent from those being depicted. These images can be misleading, degrading, or sexualised. This is not a hypothetical concern or a fringe misuse. It is exploitation, plain and simple-the digital appropriation of people’s likenesses without their permission, control, or recourse.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged LGBT+ representation and reform uk | 3 Comments

Vince Cable on internet regulation

By Gordon Lishman | Mon 2nd April 2018 - 8:55 am

In the years before the 2008 crash, Vince Cable built a reputation for seeing further ahead than most in politics and economics. Vince’s essay in the new Social Liberal Forum book “Four Go in Search of Big Ideas” enhances this record.

Writing before recent revelations about Cambridge Analytica, he identified: “the heart of the worries growing deeper about the data giants: that by filtering the information we receive they can influence not just the goods and services we consume but how we vote and, indeed, what we think”.

Vince sets out the threat to democracy: “Even if the owners of the platforms are benign and well-intentioned, the systems they have created and now monopolise may threaten democracy as we know it”. “Their systems can be used for surveillance by building up a profile of targeted individuals. Elections in many countries often revolve around which candidate has the largest, engaged, Facebook following while the US President’s Twitter following has become a means of short-circuiting the checks and balances built into media coverage”.

Vince’s concludes that “the Internet is being constructed around a handful of companies of immense and growing power, notably Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Netflix, along with their Chinese equivalents, Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu”. “We are dealing with a particular case of regulated natural monopoly. If there are historical parallels it is with nineteenth-century railway companies which dominated the economy and society of the regions they opened up”.