X’s half-assed attempt to paywall Grok doesn’t block free image editing

Once again, people are taking Grok at its word, treating the chatbot as a company spokesperson without questioning what it says.

On Friday morning, many outlets reported that X had blocked universal access to Grok’s image-editing features after the chatbot began prompting some users to pay $8 to use them. The messages are seemingly in response to reporting that people are using Grok to generate thousands of non-consensual sexualized images of women and children each hour.

“Image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers,” Grok tells users, dropping a link and urging, “you can subscribe to unlock these features.”

However, as The Verge pointed out and Ars verified, unsubscribed X users can still use Grok to edit images. X seems to have limited users’ ability to request edits made by replying to Grok while still allowing image edits through the desktop site. App users can access the ...