A U.S. federal appeals court has temporarily halted Minnesota’s ban on AI-generated fake nude images after Elon Musk’s xAI challenged the law as unconstitutional.
The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted xAI’s request for an injunction on Friday (2 October), putting the law on hold while the company pursues its lawsuit.
The decision came after a lower court rejected xAI’s earlier request to block enforcement.
Minnesota’s “nudification” law, which took effect on 1 August, prohibits website operators, software developers and others from allowing users to create realistic images depicting intimate body parts that are not shown in an original photograph of an identifiable person.
xAI argues the law violates free-speech protections under the U.S. Constitution.
In its appeal, the company also disputed a lower court’s finding that it had waited too long to seek emergency relief. xAI said its Grok Imagine tool has protections designed to prevent the creation of sexualised or “nudified” images of real people.
Minnesota had urged the appeals court not to block the law, saying it was adopted to address the spread of non-consensual sexual images and other harmful AI-generated material.
The state has specifically cited concerns over child sexual abuse material allegedly generated by AI products such as Grok Imagine.
The ruling does not resolve xAI’s underlying constitutional challenge. It temporarily prevents enforcement of the Minnesota law while the legal dispute continues.
xAI has separately sued users it alleges have circumvented Grok’s safeguards to generate sexualised images of people without their consent.
France's Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Friday that 70,000 security forces would be mobilised th...
Greece’s parliament has passed a bill banning under-15s from using social media from 1 January 2027, as the country steps up efforts to prote...
Israel has ordered security forces to seal off Hebron and prepare a full closure of the West Bank after a shooting near the city wounded at le...
Saudi Aramco has ordered staff to evacuate its headquarters amid escalating Houthi attacks on the kingdom. Two people were killed in an attack on Dammam airport, while Iran's IRGC Navy claimed strikes on seven vessels and warned the U.S. of a wider response.
Russian strikes on Ukraine overnight killed at least two people and injured 15 others, including two children, Ukrainian authorities said. Meanwhile, Russia said it had intercepted the vast majority of 630 Ukrainian drones launched towards Moscow.
Russia is willing in principle to resume peace talks with Ukraine and the United States in November, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said after President Vladimir Putin met U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg.
Super typhoon Champi is set to batter Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture from Friday (23 October), bringing violent winds, torrential rain and waves up to 11 metres high, as airlines cancel flights and organisers scrap a major festival.
If you tried to visit a government website in Europe on Wednesday and found it down, you weren’t alone. Agencies across the continent pulled their sites offline after serious security flaws were discovered in PHP, the programming language quietly running behind most of the world’s websites.
Greece’s parliament has passed a bill banning under-15s from using social media from 1 January 2027, as the country steps up efforts to protect children online. The new law will require platforms to enforce age restrictions.
Israel has ordered security forces to seal off Hebron and prepare a full closure of the West Bank after a shooting near the city wounded at least five Israelis. Soldiers killed the two gunmen.
France's Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Friday that 70,000 security forces would be mobilised throughout the country to keep order on Saturday, adding there have been calls for looting and violence from the ultra-left.
Missile and drone attacks have put Saudi Arabia on high alert, disrupting life in Riyadh and testing a new defence pact with Türkiye and Pakistan as regional tensions escalate.
Romanian authorities are searching for missing crew members following an incident involving a ship in the Black Sea. Romanian President Nicusor Dan attributed the incident to Russian escalation.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment