Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez gives a speech during the World Governments Summit in Dubai on February 3, 2026. Credit - Fadel Senna—AFP/Getty Images
The Spanish government has called for an investigation into social media giants X, Meta, and TikTok over their alleged role in producing and spreading AI-generated child sexual abuse material.
"The Council of Ministers will invoke Article 8 of the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecution Service to request that it investigate the crimes that X, Meta and TikTok may be committing through the creation and dissemination of child pornography by means of their AI," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchezwroteon X on Tuesday. Sánchez accused the platforms of "attacking the mental health, dignity and rights of our sons and daughters," saying that "the impunity of the giants must end."
The call comes as Spain moves to crack down on social media more broadly. While speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai earlier this month, Sánchezannouncedplans to ban social media for kids under the age of 16, among a series of other measures aimed at social media platforms. The proposed ban, which still needs parliamentary approval, comes after Australia became thefirst country in the worldto implement such a prohibition in December, and as other nations including France and Denmark have made moves to enact similar measures.
Read more:Where Efforts to Ban Social Media for Kids are Taking Place
Sánchez criticized tech giants at the time for failing to censor—or even generating—illegal sexualized content, and called social media "a failed state, a place where laws are ignored, and crime is endured, where disinformation is worth more than truth, and half of users suffer hate speech."
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X, has called the efforts to ban social media for users under a certain age "madness" anddescribedSánchez as "a tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain" following his remarks in Dubai.
Meta declined to comment on Sánchez's call for prosecutors to investigate the companies, but told TIME that its AI tools are trained not to comply with requests to generate nude images; that it prohibits so-called "nudify" apps, which can be used to create explicit images of individuals, from advertising on its platforms; and that it has strict policies against child exploitation.
A spokesperson for TikTok said in a statement to TIME: "[Child sexual abuse material] is abhorrent and categorically prohibited on our platform. TikTok has robust systems in place to thwart attempts to exploit or harm young people, and we continue to prioritize and invest in advanced technologies to stay one step ahead of bad actors."
TIME has reached out to X for comment.
xAI's Grok, an AI chatbot that can be used to generate and alter images, has in particular faced mounting scrutiny in recent months over the proliferation of sexualized AI-generated images. Following an update to the chatbot in December, theCenter for Countering Digital Hatefound that Grok had generated an estimated 3 million sexualized images, including 23,000 that seemed to show minors. X announced in January that it had introduced measures to prevent Grok from editing images of real people to show them in "revealing clothing." ButReutersreported earlier this month that Grok was still generating sexualized images of people in response to prompts from users, including when users explicitly told the chatbot the people in question did not consent. xAI repeatedly responded to requests for comment on that finding that "Legacy Media Lies," according to Reuters.
Other European countries have also launched probes into X over Grok's reported creation of sexually explicit content.
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Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC)announcedon Tuesday that it had formally opened an investigation into X for the apparent use of people's personal data—including that of children—to produce "potentially harmful, non-consensual intimate and/or sexualised images." X's European headquarters is located in Dublin, which means the DPC acts as the lead supervisory body over the company for the European Union.
The DPC stated in its press release that X had been notified of the investigation on Monday.
DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said that the regulator "has commenced a large-scale inquiry" into X's "compliance with some of their fundamental obligations" under the the General Data Protection Regulation, a sweepingEU data privacy law.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, alsoopenedan investigation into Grok's alleged dissemination of illegal sexualized content on Jan. 26.
The previous month, the EU separately fined X roughly 120 million euros—the equivalent of roughly $140 million—for violations to its Digital Services Act, a landmark law that requires companies to regulate illicit content and disinformation on their platforms. Regulators said X's blue checkmark system and ad database had been found to breach the law's transparency requirements, and that the company imposed "unnecessary barriers" to researchers accessing public data.
Read more:'This Is a Political Attack': Musk Responds After French Prosecutors Raid X Offices and Summon Him for Questioning
On Feb. 3, French authoritiesraided the Paris offices of Xin an escalation of another ongoing investigation into the company over allegations involving Grok-generated content and suspected algorithm abuses. Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino have been summoned for "voluntary interviews" in the French investigation on April 20.
X lambasted the raid in a statement, calling it a "politicized criminal investigation" and denying any wrongdoing.
"The Paris Public Prosecutor's office widely publicized the raid—making clear that today's action was an abusive act of law enforcement theater designed to achieve illegitimate political objectives rather than advance legitimate law enforcement goals rooted in the fair and impartial administration of justice," X's Global Government Affairs teamwrote.
On the same day as the raid in Paris, the United Kingdom Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)announcedthat it was formally investigating X and xAI for "covering their processing of personal data in relation to the Grok artificial intelligence system and its potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content." The ICO cited reports of the tool's use in generating non-consensual sexual imagery, including of children.
The United Kingdom's Office of Communications, or Ofcom, the country's independent online safety watchdog, previouslyopened an investigationinto X on Jan. 12 following reports that Grok was being used to "create and share undressed images of people – which may amount to intimate image abuse or pornography – and sexualised images of children that may amount to child sexual abuse material."
TikTok and Meta have not faced the same degree of official scrutiny over AI-generated imagery in recent months, though both companies have been rebuked by the EU over separate matters this month. The European Commission issued a preliminary finding in aprobeinto TikTok on Feb. 5 determining that the platform was in violation of the Digital Services Act for its "addictive design." Days later, the commission said it had notified Meta of a "preliminary view" that the companybreached EU antitrust rulesby excluding third-party AI assistants from being accessed by or interacting with users on WhatsApp.
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