India has directed Elon Musk–owned social media platform X to immediately modify its AI chatbot, Grok, following mounting concerns over the generation of obscene and unlawful content.
The order, issued on Friday by India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, mandates urgent technical and procedural changes aimed at preventing Grok from producing content involving nudity, sexualisation, sexually explicit material or other prohibited outputs.
Under the directive, X has been given 72 hours to submit an action-taken report detailing the safeguards it has deployed to stop the hosting or circulation of content classified as obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, paedophilic or otherwise illegal under Indian law.
The ministry warned that non-compliance could jeopardise X’s safe-harbour status — a legal protection that shields digital platforms from liability for user-generated content, provided they adhere to regulatory requirements.
Regulatory scrutiny intensified after users shared examples of Grok being prompted to digitally alter images of individuals, mostly women, to depict them in bikinis. The incidents triggered backlash online and raised fresh questions about content moderation in generative AI systems.
The issue drew political attention when Indian parliamentarian Priyanka Chaturvedi lodged a formal complaint, urging authorities to examine the AI tool’s safeguards and enforcement mechanisms.
Separately, recent reports flagged instances in which Grok generated sexualised images involving minors. X acknowledged earlier on Friday that the incident resulted from gaps in its safety controls and said the images had been removed.
The episode adds to growing global pressure on tech companies to tighten guardrails around generative AI, as regulators increasingly move to hold platforms accountable for harmful or unlawful outputs generated by their systems.
