A São Paulo appeals court ordered X to pay BRL 30,000 (USD 5,720) to a woman whose likeness was used without her consent to generate sexualized images through Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot owned by xAI (X’s parent company).
The São Paulo State Court of Justice considered that “the platform, by profiting from the dissemination of data and technological tools, must bear the burden of their misuse when it fails to prevent the exposure of its users’ privacy.” Still, the appellate panel reduced the victim’s due compensation from almost BRL 57,000.
For Douglas Freitas, the attorney who represented the victim, the appellate ruling points toward a consequential shift. “Many people believe the internet is a lawless land, but in fact, many crimes and illicit acts committed in the ‘real world’ can be perfectly applied to acts carried out in the virtual sphere,” he said. Applying consumer protection law to a social media platform, he argues, sets a precedent that could fundamentally reshape how Brazilian courts handle similar cases.
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