By Benjamin Von Wyl
Switzerland’s finance minister, Karin Keller-Sutter, has lodged a formal complaint over online abuse linked to the Grok AI chatbot. It is a bold signal against digital abuse and marks a clear break from the US understanding of free speech.
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence model Grok has courted controversy in recent months. The model, which at one point called itself “MechaHitler”, has been found to readily generate insulting posts. For a period in early 2026, it also created thousands of sexualised deepfake images of women and children per hour, prompting the US magazine The Nation to dub it “pedo chatbot”. The European Union has since launched a wide-reaching investigation into Grok over the deepfakes.
Now Switzerland’s finance minister is taking legal action against the model over written sexualised vilification. On March 10, a Swiss pensioner asked Grok in vulgar and sexualised terms to “roast” Keller-Sutter. He then shared the AI-generated post on X (former Twitter), which has since been deleted.
[ . . . ]What kind of statements must politicians tolerate?
Jordi Calvet-Bademunt is a senior research fellow at The Future of Free Speech, a think tank at Vanderbilt University in the United States that studies freedom of expression. In the US, Calvet-Bademunt explained, “offensive speech directed at politicians receives greater legal protection”.
“Whether the specific content at issue in this case qualifies for protection under Swiss law will depend on the particulars of the message,” he said.
The think tank advocates a broad interpretation of freedom of expression. Calvet-Bademunt said free speech “does not only protect speech that is inoffensive,” but also “offensive, shocking or disturbing” statements. This protection is particularly important for political speech, he added, “including speech about politicians”.
“This does not mean that society must endorse or condone every form of protected speech, but shielding controversial expression is fundamental to the health of our democracies,” he said.
The researcher views Keller-Sutter’s legal complaint as “part of a broader trend in democracies” where scepticism towards AI is leading politicians to call for tighter regulations.
“India confronted Google when its AI model suggested that some experts considered Prime Minister Modi’s policies to be ‘fascist’,” he said. “Turkey partially blocked access to Grok after the AI chatbot generated responses insulting President Erdogan, Atatürk, and religious values.”
Turkey is not considered a liberal democracy by international standards. Calvet-Bademunt also points to Poland, an EU member state where Prime Minister Donald Tusk has pushed back against posts generated by Grok.
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Jordi Calvet-Bademunt is a Senior Research Fellow at The Future of Free Speech and a Visiting Scholar at Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on free speech in the digital space.