India has issued a directive to Elon Musk’s X to make immediate changes to its AI chatbot Grok following concerns about the generation of inappropriate content. Users and lawmakers flagged instances of “obscene” content being created by the tool, including AI-altered images of women.
The Ministry of IT in India has instructed X to implement technical and procedural changes on Grok to restrict the generation of content that is deemed “obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, pedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under law.” The social media platform has been given 72 hours to submit a report detailing the actions taken to prevent the hosting or dissemination of such content. Failure to comply could result in X losing its legal immunity for user-generated content under Indian law.
The concerns were raised after users reported instances of Grok altering images of individuals, particularly women, to make them appear as if they were wearing bikinis. Indian parliamentarian Priyanka Chaturvedi filed a formal complaint regarding this issue. Additionally, there were reports of the AI chatbot generating sexualized images involving minors, which X acknowledged as a result of lapses in safeguards.
Despite some of the inappropriate content being taken down, images created by Grok that depicted women in bikinis through AI alteration were still accessible on X at the time of publication. This led to the Indian government issuing a broader advisory to social media platforms, reminding them of the importance of complying with local laws governing obscene and sexually explicit content to maintain legal immunity.
The Indian IT ministry warned that non-compliance with these requirements could result in strict legal consequences for the platform, its responsible officers, and users who violate the law. X could face legal action under India’s IT and criminal laws if it fails to address the issues raised.
India’s stance on regulating AI-generated content is seen as a critical test case for how governments hold platforms accountable. Any enforcement measures taken in India could have implications for global technology companies operating in various jurisdictions. Despite ongoing challenges to India’s content regulation rules in court, X continues to comply with blocking directives while facing scrutiny over Grok’s outputs being used for real-time fact-checking and news commentary.
X and its AI division xAI have not yet commented on the Indian government’s directive. The platform’s response to the order and its efforts to address the concerns raised will be closely monitored in the coming days.
