Grok controversy: X admits lapses, blocks 3.5K posts, 600 accounts

After government pressure, X removes thousands of obscene Grok-generated images in India, but the fight over platform liability and user misuse is far from over

Elon Musk-owned X (formerly Twitter) has informed the Indian government that it removed nearly 3,500 pieces of obscene and sexually explicit content generated by users in the country through misuse of Grok’s capabilities, sources said.

 

“They [X] have also barred and de-platformed nearly 600 users, including some from other countries, who were misusing photos of Indian women and children to generate these images. They have further informed us that going forward, Grok will not generate such images for users in India,” a senior government official said.

 

X’s response came in an action-taken report (ATR) sought by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity). 

On 7 January, X submitted a reply to Meity, acknowledging the gravity of the situation. However, the platform maintained that, since Grok is an artificial intelligence (AI) chat-enabled tool, the users who generated the objectionable, sexually explicit images were responsible — not the platform, which is protected under the safe harbour provision of Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. 

Meity, however, was not satisfied with X’s response and issued a second notice on Thursday, seeking a detailed ATR. The ministry also asked X to provide specifics of actions taken against offending accounts both in India and worldwide.

 

In December, following complaints from several women about the misuse of their images to create sexually explicit content, Meity’s cyber laws division instructed the platform to “remove or disable access, without delay, to all content already generated or disseminated in violation of applicable laws, in strict compliance with the timelines prescribed under the IT Rules, 2021, without vitiating the evidence in any manner”.

 

The ministry also said that X must enforce its terms of service and AI-usage restrictions and take “strong deterrent measures”, including suspending, terminating, or taking other action against accounts using Grok to produce sexually explicit images of women and children. 

X to open-source new algorithm

in seven days Elon Musk said that X would open to the public its new algorithm, including all code for organic and advertising post recommendations, in seven days. “This will be repeated every weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed,” he said in his X post. [Reuters]

Grok AI blocked in Indonesia, Malaysia 

Indonesia and Malaysia restricted access to Elon Musk’s Grok AI over the weekend, becoming the first countries to ban the artificial intelligence system over its generation of sexual content. The move by the nations came as Musk’s xAI, which owns Grok, decided on Friday to restrict the image-generation feature for most users. [Bloomberg]