xAI Requests Court to Remove Anonymity from Alleged Victims of Grok Deepfake Nudes

“Excluding the deepfake image itself, which remains sealed, there is nothing inherently stigmatizing about disclosing that a deepfake image was created of South Carolina Doe without revealing the image,” the attorneys noted in one of their filings on May 15. “Thus, this case does not involve the compelling privacy interests typically recognized as necessitating pseudonymity.”

Neither xAI nor the legal representatives for the company responded to WIRED’s inquiry regarding the case.

Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law specializing in digital abuse, states that civil cases requiring individuals to sue under their real names can lead to lawsuits being abandoned, creating an “unacceptable and unjust” scenario. “Requiring plaintiffs in privacy lawsuits to use their names contributes little to judicial transparency and significantly deters litigation,” Citron tells WIRED.

According to their legal filings on May 29, all four pseudonymous claimants in the case would consider withdrawing from the proceedings if their names were to be disclosed. In these recent filings, the claimants’ attorneys assert that xAI’s request should be rejected, emphasizing that the case revolves around “highly personal and embarrassing deepfakes depicting Plaintiffs that were shared without their consent.”

The South Carolina Doe recounted discovering an alleged deepfake of themselves “in a revealing bikini” online, expressing that it showcased their body “in a way I would never share publicly.” They articulated concerns about potential judgments from employers or colleagues if they were to see the image and expressed fears of being further targeted online. “I was also filled with disgust thinking about what the individual who had asked Grok to create the deepfake was doing with the photo,” they stated.

“If I were compelled to publicly disclose my name in this case, I would worry that supporters of Elon Musk, his companies, and Grok, who I have observed to be very vocal online, would find my name in the public record, disseminate it, dox me, and retaliate by creating more extreme deepfakes of me,” the filing asserts.

Similar accounts from other alleged deepfake victims reveal experiences of “severe emotional distress,” embarrassment, and shock at the unauthorized images. Broadly, other victims of deepfake sexual abuse and nonconsensual imagery have reported similar feelings.

One male identified as New Jersey Doe in the lawsuit noted that he saw individuals on X utilizing Grok to create sexualized images and submitted a request for “Grok not to create images of me without my consent.” The following day, according to court records, he found two deepfake images of himself, one depicting him “spreading his butt cheeks.” He believed that his message to Grok requesting not to make deepfakes of him “attracted the attention of online trolls who were using Grok to harass and distress me.”