Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has blocked more than 3,500 pieces of content and deleted over 600 accounts, assuring compliance with India’s online content laws. The action follows a government deadline for X Corp, a company owned by Elon Musk, to file an action taken report on obscene and sexually explicit content generated by its AI chatbot Grok.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had issued a formal warning to X on January 2, where the ministry highlighted serious failures by X in curbing explicit content. Specifically, the ministry raised concerns over the misuse of X’s AI tools, including Grok and xAI, for generating and sharing obscene images and videos of women. The government gave X, led by Elon Musk, 72 hours to submit an action report addressing these issues.
The government issued a stern warning to X, pointing out that failure to comply could lead to severe legal consequences under various Indian laws. These include:
IT Act
Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita
Indecent Representation of Women Act
Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act
Additionally, the notice directed X to review its technical and governance frameworks to prevent misuse of AI-generated content, enforce stricter user policies, and suspend or terminate accounts found violating these policies.
X reportedly replied to the ministry’s letter five days later, but the government expressed dissatisfaction with the response. One official described X's reply as little more than a five-page reproduction of its user policy. The government pointed out that the core concerns outlined in its
initial letter were not adequately addressed in the response.
“The conduct reflects a serious failure of platform-level safeguards and enforcement mechanisms and amounts to gross misuse of AI technologies in violation of applicable laws,” the ministry said.
Officials clarified that Grok can no longer be considered a neutral platform tool. They emphasized that it should be viewed as a content creator, similar to human creators, but as an artificial one. The ministry stated that the issue has shifted from a higher, operational stance to a legal one, stressing the need for accountability under the law.
India is not the only country opposing the creation of explicit content with Grok AI. Indonesia has recently halted the chatbot due to worries about AI-produced pornographic material, and the UK, France, and Malaysia have previously resisted such content generation.
