X takes action after India's complaint, blocks 3,500 posts, deletes 600 accounts over Grok AI controversy: Report

Social media platform X has blocked more than 3,500 content items and removed over 600 accounts, while assuring authorities that its operation complies with the online content laws in India, according to the HT. The action follows the government's recent directive giving X Corp, owned by Elon Musk, the task of filing an action taken report on obscene and sexually explicit content generated by its AI chatbot, Grok.

Sources said X “admitted its mistake” and committed to stopping the creation of obscene images on the platform. On January 2, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) wrote to X, citing serious shortcomings in curbing sexually explicit content. “The law of the land must prevail,” an official said, HT reported.

Officials warned that X could lose legal protection under Indian law, and warned that other platforms would also face similar actions if their AI chatbots fail to comply. “In Grok’s case, the impact is accelerated because it operates on a platform like X," the official had said.

Officials confirmed that the ministry has decided that Grok cannot be treated as a neutral platform tool. “The mindset has now changed. Earlier, they were operating from a higher position, but we have brought the issue down to the level of the law. Grok cannot be treated as a platform. It is a content creator, an artificial content creator. Just as I am a human content creator, Grok is an artificial one,” the official said.

Other countries also objected to explicit content generation

Five days later, X reportedly responded to the letter of the ministry, but the government stated that it was not satisfied with its answer. An official described the response as X “essentially reproducing its own user policy across five pages and sending it to the ministry.” The government clarified that the main concerns raised in its letter were not addressed in the response.

Meanwhile, India is not the only country to object to the generation of explicit content using Grok AI. Recently, Indonesia suspended the chatbot over concerns about AI-generated pornographic content. In addition, the UK, France and Malaysia have also objected to the explicit content generation in the past.