I think one big issue with this statement – "CSAM" lacks a precise legal definition; the precise legal term(s) vary from country to country, with differing definitions. While sexual imagery of real minors is highly illegal everywhere, there's a whole lot of other material – textual stories, drawings, animation, AI-generated images of nonexistent minors – which can be extremely criminal on one side of an international border, de facto legal on the other.
And I'm not actually sure what the legal definition is in France; the relevant article of the French Penal Code 227-23 [0] seems superficially similar to the legal definition of "child pornography" in the United States (post-Ashcroft vs Free Speech Coalition), and so some–but (maybe) not all–of the "CSAM" Grok is accused of generating wouldn't actually fall under it. (But of course, I don't know how French courts interpret it, so maybe what it means in practice is something broader than my reading of the text suggests.)
And I think this is part of the issue – xAI's executives are likely focused on compliance with US law on these topics, less concerned with complying with non-US law, in spite of the fact that CSAM laws in much of the rest of the world are much broader than in the US. That's less of an issue for Anthropic/Google/OpenAI, since their executives don't have the same "anything that's legal" attitude which xAI often has. And, as I said – while that's undoubtedly true in general, I'm unsure to what extent it is actually true for France in particular.
[0] https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/LEGITEXT0000...
The most common French word is Pédopornographie. But my impression is the definition of that word under French law is possibly narrower than some definitions of the English acronym “CSAM”. Canadian law is much broader, and so what’s legally pédopornographie (English “child pornogaphy”) in Canada may be much closer to broad “CSAM” definitions
> The point is, X did things that are illegal in France, no matter what you call them.
Which French law are you alleging they violated? Article 227-23 du Code pénal, or something else? And how exactly are you claiming they violated it?
Note the French authorities at this time are not accusing them of violating the law. An investigation is simply a concern or suspicion of a legal violation, not a formal accusation; one possible outcome of an investigation is a formal accusation, another is the conclusion that they (at least technically) didn’t violate the law after all. I don’t think the French legal process has reached a conclusion either way yet.
One relevant case is the unpublished Court of Cassation decision 06-86.763 dated 12 septembre 2007 [0] which upheld a conviction of child pornography for importing and distributing the anime film “Twin Angels - le retour des bêtes célestes - Vol. 3". [0] However, the somewhat odd situation is that it appears that film is catalogued by the French national library, [1] although I don’t know if a catalogue entry definitively proves they possess the item. Also, art. 227-23 distinguishes between material depicting under 15s (illegal to even possess) and material depicting under 18s (only illegal to possess if one has intent to distribute); this prosecution appears to be have been brought under the latter category only-even though the individual was depicted as being under 15-suggesting this anime might not be illegal to possess in France if one has no intent to distribute it.
But this is the point - one needs to look at the details of exactly what the law says and how exactly the authorities apply it, rather than vague assertions of criminality which might not actually be true.
[0] https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/juri/id/JURITEXT000007640077/
True, but outright child porn is illegal everywhere (as you said) and the borderline legal stuff is something most of your audience is quite happy to have removed. I cannot imagine you are going to get a lot of complaints if you remove AI generated sexual images of minors, for example so it seems reasonable to play it safe.
> That's less of an issue for Anthropic/Google/OpenAI, since their executives don't have the same "anything that's legal" attitude which xAI often has.
This is also common, but it is irritating too as it means the rest of the world is stuck with silly American attitudes about things like nudity and alcohol - for example Youtube videos blurring out bits of Greek statues because they are scared of being demonetised. These are things people take kids to see in museums!