How to prevent your images from being edited with Grok via “Edit image” on X (Twitter)
A button has been added to the web version of X (Twitter) that lets you edit images with the generative AI Grok.
In this article, we introduce how to prevent images you have posted from being edited with Grok.
Table of Contents
A feature has been added to edit images with Grok
A button has been added to the web version of X that lets you edit images with the generative AI Grok.
By hovering your mouse over an image and clicking the [Edit image] button that appears, you can use Grok to edit the image, regardless of whether it is an image you posted or an image posted by someone else.
In X’s mobile app, by at least April of this year, the same feature had been available from the menu that appears when you press and hold an image.
For that reason, the ability to edit images attached to posts with Grok is not new, but what is different is that access to the feature has become easier to notice.
How can I prevent “Edit image” from being used?
As of the time of writing, there is no setting provided to disable [Edit image] for images you have posted.
Some users have stated that you can disable [Edit image] by turning off the setting [Allow X to customize your experience with Grok], but this is not true.
Even if you turn off this setting, the [Edit image] button will continue to appear.
However, the [Edit image] button does not appear for GIF images attached to posts, so you can prevent the [Edit image] button from appearing by posting a GIF animation instead of a still image.
It cannot be ruled out that in the future the [Edit image] button may also appear for GIF animations, but at least for now this is an effective countermeasure.
Note that GIF animations attached to posts cannot be enlarged even if you tap them.
Tapping a GIF animation will display it full-screen, but you cannot zoom in on it like a normal image, even if you pinch out.
Also, while GIF animations can be posted up to 5MB in the mobile app and up to 15MB on the web, it is recommended that the resolution be 1280x1080px or less, the number of frames be 350 frames or less, and the total number of pixels (width × height × number of frames) be 300 million or less.
This does not completely prevent AI editing
Posting a GIF animation instead of a still image can prevent the [Edit image] button from appearing when you mouse over the image, but it does not completely prevent the image from being edited by AI.
Even if it is a GIF animation, you cannot prevent viewers from downloading the image or taking a screenshot and loading it into Grok or other generative AIs.
Also, it is unclear whether GIF animations are included in Grok’s training data, so if you do not want your content to be used for training, you should opt out in your settings.
Conclusion
We introduced how to prevent images you post on X from being edited with the generative AI Grok.
As of the time of writing, there is no dedicated setting, but posting a GIF animation instead of a still image will make the [Edit image] button stop appearing.
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I've been using JavaScript more than my native language since birth. I am nowhere and everywhere on the internet.
I build web apps and browser extensions in TypeScript as a web frontend programmer. I released Shadowban Scanner, a tool that detects shadowbans on X, and Restore Link Card, a tool that brings back link cards. Media outlets in Japan and abroad covered both tools. For iGEM 2023, I built the Wiki for Team Japan-United and helped the team win the Grand Prize. On my blog, I cover news about X and social media, test and troubleshoot bugs, and share frontend development insights.
