Big Tech firms are coming under greater scrutiny for the proliferation of child sexual abuse material generated by artificial intelligence-powered chatbots on their social media platforms.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced on Tuesday that it was invoking the European Union's data privacy regulations to open an investigation into Grok, the AI chatbot featured on Elon Musk's X platform, after it was used to generate nonconsensual deepfake images, including sexualized images of children.
In announcing the investigation, DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said that the commission has been in contact with X for weeks after reports first emerged of Grok being used to generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Doyle said DPC has since decided to launch "a large-scale inquiry which will examine [X's] compliance with some of their fundamental obligations" under European privacy laws.
Spanish President Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday that his government would ask Spain's Public Prosecution Service to "investigate the crimes that X, Meta, and TikTok may be committing through the creation and dissemination of child pornography by means of their AI."
"These platforms are attacking the mental health, dignity, and rights of our sons and daughters," Sánchez emphasized. "The state cannot allow it. The impunity of the giants must end."
The probes announced by Ireland and Spain mark just the latest actions by European governments against US-based tech giants. Earlier in February, law enforcement authorities in France raided the office of X in Paris, which the Paris prosecutor’s office said was part of an investigation aimed at "ensuring that the X platform complies with French laws, insofar as it operates on national territory."
The UK government's Information Commissioner's Office has also announced an investigation into X that the agency said encompasses "their processing of personal data in relation to the Grok artificial intelligence system and its potential to produce harmful sexualized image and video content."
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The number of people who have faced criminal charges related to their pregnancies has soared since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and now, a sheriff's office in South Carolina is investigating a fetus found at a water treatment plant.
The Sumter County Sheriff's Office announced Friday that deputies were called to the plant on Edgehill Road after workers found the fetus, which was sent to the Medical University of South Carolina, according to The State. County Coroner Robbie Baker said that "it was a small fetus. Probably not more than 6 inches long. It was somewhat developed."
Baker shared the findings from the autopsy on Monday: The fetus was just 13-15 weeks, male, and showed no signs of trauma. ABC News 4 reported that he also said this was being ruled a stillborn death—even though a stillbirth is generally defined as a pregnancy loss after 20 weeks, and a loss before that is a miscarriage.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is "testing tissue samples to determine the race and locate the mother," according to WIS News 10. "The coroner said the race could not be immediately determined due to how long the fetus had been sitting in sewer chemicals."
As Kylie Cheung wrote Monday at Jessica Valenti's newsletter Abortion, Every Day: "Our immediate questions: Why are pregnancy remains being investigated by law enforcement at all? How can 14-week fetal remains be ruled a 'stillborn death'? And why are state authorities trying to determine the race of these pregnancy remains? This is particularly concerning given that women of color are overrepresented among criminal cases involving pregnancy."
Such probes have become "all too routine," Laura Huss, a senior researcher at If/When/How, told Cheung. "Pregnancy losses aren't crimes... No one should have to live with the fear that their miscarriage or stillbirth could result in cops showing up at their door, which is what investigations and media stories like this create."
The advocacy group Pregnancy Justice said last year that "from June 2022 to June 2024—the first two years after the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade—prosecutors initiated at least 412 cases across the country charging individuals with crimes related to their pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth."
"So what is the point of this investigation, beyond terrorizing women through control and surveillance of their bodies?"
Since Roe's reversal, far-right politicians and anti-choice organizations have ramped up their push for more state and federal restrictions on reproductive freedom. South Carolina groups that fight for such policies—from abortion bans based on gestational age to fetal personhood legislation—are now using the fetus found there to advocate for new state laws.
One proposal would "require the Department of Environmental Services to conduct testing for urinary metabolites in certain wastewater treatment facilities," Fox Carolina reported. Another would prohibit the "mailing, shipping, or prescribing of abortifacients, including from out-of-state sources," as well as "classify committing or attempting to commit an abortion using an abortifacient on a mother as a felony punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment or a fine of up to $100k."
Almost every action after pregnancy loss has come under scrutiny. Many of these laws, like the crime of “concealing a birth,” date back to the 1600s, used to criminalize unwed women who were thought to be more likely to hide & end their pregnancies, fearing intense societal shame and repercussions.
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— Pregnancy Justice (@pregnancyjust.bsky.social) January 29, 2026 at 11:42 AMLast month, Pregnancy Justice released a report that "maps the matrix of laws and policies that can be used to criminalize postpartum people for how they respond to their own pregnancy loss in every state." Its section on South Carolina says:
Although South Carolina does not have a broad prenatal personhood law, criminal or otherwise, its state Supreme Court establishes broad criminal prenatal personhood with the harmful proposition that criminal statutes apply to "viable fetuses" unless the Legislature expressly says otherwise. A former attorney general also noted his position that prenatal personhood applies broadly to South Carolina's laws. By extension, an attempt to criminalize the "destruction or desecration" or transportation without a permit of viable fetal remains could be made.
Separately, people are also required to report "stillbirth[s] when unattended by a physician."
Pregnancy Justice legal director Karen Thompson told Cheung that criminal charges shouldn't be applicable in the case of the fetus found in South Carolina, whether it was a miscarriage or an abortion, because of the "viability" requirement in state law. She added, "So what is the point of this investigation, beyond terrorizing women through control and surveillance of their bodies?"
The South Carolina investigation follows last week's arrest of a Kentucky couple, Deann and Charles Bennett, after she was taken to a hospital following a reported miscarriage in November 2024. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, they were each charged with reckless homicide, and she also faces charges of abuse of a corpse, concealing the birth of an infant, and tampering with physical evidence.
Reporting on that case last week, Valenti and Cheung pointed out that "right now, all of the available information is coming from cops and law enforcement—so take it all with a grain of salt. Again and again, Abortion, Every Day has found police lying about these arrests, or misrepresenting what really happened. Too often, local media will parrot those facts' uncritically and destroy people's lives in the process."
"Already, Deann and Charles' mugshots have been splashed across Kentucky crime pages," the pair added. "Deann is seen sobbing in hers."
According to Pregnancy Justice's January report: "Although Kentucky's broad prenatal personhood law is enjoined, the state Supreme Court provides that a viable fetus is a human being within the meaning of the penal code. By extension, an attempt to criminalize the nonreporting and disposal of viable fetal remains could be made. Separately, Kentucky has a statute that prohibits 'concealing [a] birth' to 'prevent a determination of whether it was born dead or alive.'"
The Great Binge being a period of over 40 years where people of all ages, all nationalities, and all social classes were routinely tripping balls.
I just tried to make something simple without tutorial to just to try krita.
Some of the Kaiser caregivers on strike in Oakland, California, Feb. 11, 2026. Oakland, California — Some 31,000 nurses and other health care workers represented by United Nurses Association (UNAC) of California and the Union of Health Care Professionals (UHCP) started in January what they call “the largest health care . . .
Continue reading 31,000 Kaiser caregivers on strike in California at Workers.org
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As the Trump administration broadens its efforts to criminalize dissent, a nonviolent climate advocacy group says the FBI is targeting it with a terrorism investigation.
Using a dubious legal designation of "domestic terrorism," the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has ramped up its efforts to surveil those it considers to be domestic enemies—including members of left-wing groups with no history of violence.
The New York City chapter of the group Extinction Rebellion said one of its former members came into the crosshairs earlier this month.
In a statement onWednesday, the group said that a former member was visited by two special agents, one of whom was from the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces, at their residence 200 miles outside New York City.
They said the agents asked about their involvement with Extinction Rebellion. The member declined to respond, referring the questions to their attorney.
The former member, who has chosen to remain anonymous, told the Intercept that they hadn't been involved with the group in two years and hadn't participated in any actions they thought would warrant FBI involvement.
“I believe this to be a significant escalation of the criminal legal system against Extinction Rebellion and find it very troubling,” Ron Kuby, an attorney for Extinction Rebellion, said. “This is usually the way we find out an actual investigation is underway and is often followed by other visits and other actions.”
He said he found it strange that Extinction Rebellion would become the target of a terrorism investigation. Members of the group take part in acts of what they call "nonviolent civil disobedience" such as blocking roads, sit-ins at public buildings, and occasional vandalism.
The group has sought to use these tactics to draw attention to leaders' inaction in fighting the climate crisis. Increasingly, they have launched protests against the Trump administration's policies more broadly, including its deployment of federal immigration agents in cities across the country.
While its actions can be disruptive, Extinction Rebellion has always been nonviolent, Kuby said, and its tactics are at worst misdemeanor offenses, which typically wouldn't interest federal law enforcement.
"[Extinction Rebellion NYC] is a nonviolent, decentralized group of artists, small business owners, parents, retired teachers, and everyday New Yorkers. We are not terrorists!" said a statement from Extinction Rebellion Global posted to social media on Tuesday. "We use artistic nonviolent organized protests, community outreach, and strategic advocacy to empower everyday citizens and drive meaningful environmental change."
"This is an escalation against the climate movement as a whole, and the next phase of this administration's crackdown on dissent that many of us have been expecting," the group continued.
The New York City chapter of Extinction Rebellion is not the first to receive FBI visits during the second Trump administration.
Last year, six members of its sister group in Boston said the feds came to their doors, all on the same day in March, and questioned them without providing any business cards or explanation for their visit.
According to WBUR reporting at the time, none of the activists questioned had a history of participating in violent protests or of facing felony charges in federal or Massachusetts courts.
Jeff Feuer, a lawyer in Cambridge who has represented climate activists for more than three decades, told the outlet, “Until this year, I have never heard about the FBI or any other federal law enforcement officer visiting or questioning any of the hundreds of climate activists that I have personally represented."
After months of denial, US Attorney General Pam Bondi acknowledged during a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month that the department does, in fact, have a list of "domestic terrorist organizations" being compiled under President Donald Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which was described as a national directive to use the Joint Terrorism Task Forces to focus on “leftist” political violence in America.
That memo, commonly referred to as NSPM-7, was first obtained by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein in September. It laid out a national strategy to “disrupt” individuals or groups that "foment political violence" before it takes place.
NSPM-7 described many vaguely defined political viewpoints as potential "indicators" that one is a possible domestic terorrist, including: "anti-Americanism," "anti-capitalism," and "Anti-Christianity"; "extremism" on "migration," "race," and "gender"; and "hostility to those who hold traditional views" on "family," "religion," and "morality."
In another memo that leaked in December, Bondi—who just months before pledged under oath there would “never be an enemies list” compiled by the DOJ—directed the department to compile a list of potential “domestic terrorism” organizations that espouse “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”
It directs federal law enforcement agencies to refer "suspected" domestic terrorism cases to the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which will then undertake an “exhaustive investigation contemplated by NSPM-7” that will incorporate “a focused strategy to root out all culpable participants—including organizers and funders—in all domestic terrorism activities.”
During the hearing, Bondi refused to say which groups and entities were on the list of so-called "domestic terrorists," though she acknowledged it existed, saying, "I know antifa is part of that."
Trump designated "antifa," referring to a loose confederation of antifascist groups, as a "domestic terrorist organization" in October, even though there is no formal "domestic terrorism" statute in US law.
It is unclear whether a formal federal investigation into Extinction Rebellion is underway or if it is part of NSPM-7.
An internal document shared with the Guardian in November revealed that the FBI had launched “criminal and domestic terrorism investigations” into “threats against immigration enforcement activity” in at least 23 regions across the US—including New York. It acknowledged that some of the investigations were related to the "countering domestic terrorism" memo.
"'Domestic terrorism' may not yet be a criminal charge, but the Trump administration is gearing up to create it," Extinction Rebellion NYC said on Wednesday. "NSPM-7... will be the broadest criminalization of free speech since McCarthyism or the height of the Civil Rights Movement. And while this fossil-fueled administration has already failed in some attempts to silence critics, we understand the broader context within which our specific activities sit."
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