Germany’s Federal Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) wants to curb the creation and distribution of sexualized images generated using artificial intelligence. “We need criminal offenses that specifically address the problem of digital image manipulation,” Hubig told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (Wednesday edition). She added that those affected must be better protected against AI-based image manipulation. “It must be easier to defend oneself against violations of personality rights,” Hubig said.
The SPD minister said she was appalled by the so-called “bikini-now” trend. “I find it terrible when AI tools like Grok are used to mass-produce suggestive images of women, such as putting them in provocative bikinis without any consent,” Hubig said. Personality rights were being systematically violated, and women were being reduced to objects. The creation of sexualized AI images of children and adolescents was particularly reprehensible, the justice minister stressed. “We cannot accept that.”
According to Hubig, there are already legal avenues to take action against the spread of AI-manipulated images, but these are not sufficient. For this reason, the Justice Ministry is currently working on a draft Digital Violence Protection Act. “We want appropriate penalties for deepfakes that violate the personality rights of those affected,” Hubig said. In addition, national regulations are being developed to quickly halt the spread of such images and remove them from platforms.
Hubig rejected criticism, such as lawsuits brought by X owner Elon Musk, that the measures would restrict freedom of expression. “This has nothing to do with censorship,” she said. Freedom of art and expression is a high value, but it reaches its limits where personality rights are violated. At the same time, the justice minister emphasized: “This is not about banning tools or shutting down platforms. Nor is it about controlling opinions, but about enforcing and protecting personality rights.”
At the end of December, X introduced an “edit image” button for its generative AI tool. Since then, complaints have increased about the “spicy mode” (a double entendre suggesting “hot” or “explicit”), which, according to X, allows “raw” and “unfiltered” prompts where “no topic” is off-limits. Musk’s AI company xAI, which is responsible for Grok, said in early January that it was working to fix errors in the AI tool.
The European Commission says it is examining complaints about Grok related to child pornographic images. On Saturday, Indonesia became the first country in the world to completely block Grok. Elsewhere, use of the tool has been restricted to paying customers.
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