Liverpool Football Club has lodged a formal complaint with Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, following a series of offensive tweets generated by its AI chatbot, Grok. The posts targeted the club and its fanbase, sparking outrage and concern.
Introduced by Musk in 2023, Grok has faced numerous controversies, including a notorious incident last year involving Holocaust denial, where the bot questioned the historical use of gas chambers at Auschwitz.
The AI tool allows users to request content creation or ask questions, leading some to exploit it by prompting Grok to comment on sensitive topics such as the Hillsborough and Heysel disasters.
In one alarming incident, a user known as @LJMM30 instructed the chatbot to generate an offensive message about Liverpool FC, specifically mentioning the club’s fans and the tragic events at Hillsborough and Heysel. The resulting post was filled with deeply offensive and derogatory language.
Another user, @JAYAFC23, pushed the boundaries further by asking Grok to compose a similarly distasteful post about Diogo Jota, a Liverpool player who, along with his brother, tragically died in a car accident last summer.
Another user, @JAYAFC23, responds by requesting Grok to create a similar post on Diogo Jota, the Liverpool playmaker who tragically perished in a car crash last summer along with his brother.
Liverpool have been appalled by a despicable AI generated post about the Hillsborough disaster and the Heysel tragedy
Again, the subsequent post is too appalling to repeat.
Inside Sport understands that Liverpool are aware of the posts and have been successful in their attempt to get them removed.
Other top-flight clubs have also been targeted, including both Manchester sides and Sunderland.
In January, Ofcom hit out at Musk’s site following complaints that Grok was able to produce images of ‘minors in minimal clothing’.
The UK media regulator said it had ‘serious concerns’ that the bot was producing ‘undressed images’ of people.
X responded by stating it had ‘identified lapses in safeguards’ and was ‘urgently fixing them’.
Last month, X’s French offices were raided by the Paris prosecutor’s cyber-crime unit, as part of an investigation into suspected offences including unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child sexual abuse material.
X owner Elon Musk has been defiant in the face of criticism of Grok’s ‘identified lapses in safeguards’
Musk has been summoned to appear at a hearing in April, while the UK Information Commissioner’s Office announced a probe into Grok surrounding its ‘potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content’.
Musk responded on X, branding the raid ‘a political attack’.
More sanctions to come for Nazi salute ‘supporters’
Last week UEFA announced that Tottenham Hotspur had been handed a one-match ban on away fans in European competition, suspended for a year, after three ‘supporters’ had been caught making Nazi salutes at their Champions League clash with Eintracht Frankfurt. The club were quick to condemn the trio’s ‘utterly abhorrent conduct’, saying that they had each been identified and banned from the Tottenham Stadium.
And it could now get worse for the mindless group. Met Police have told Inside Sport that they have now requested information from their counterparts in Germany, who fined the three, and are considering whether to take ‘further measures’ in the UK.
Southampton takes a stand
Hats off to Southampton, who perhaps provided the highlight of the EFL’s club meeting last week during a presentation by Hawkeye, with regards to extending the controversial technology that has plagued the Premier League into the tiers below.
The Saints representative was quick to tell the room that VAR was terrible and was killing both football and the passion involved. They added that they were happy to accept the drop off in the number of correct decisions, which is believed to be around 10 per cent (from 97 per cent with to 87 per cent without) to put decisions back into the hands of the referee and their assistants. Hear, hear.
Drive to Survive, and thrive
The popularity of Formula 1 continues to rise, with interest in the new season up 28 per cent on last year according to ticket resellers viagogo. Around 51 per cent of buyers so far are doing so for the first time, with the continuing success of the Drive to Survive series thought to be fuelling the spark.
The UK, US and Canada remain the largest buyers of tickets, although the Japanese Grand Prix has seen the biggest surge in interest and is now the third-most in-demand race of the 2026 season on the platform, behind the Canadian and Miami Grand Prix.
