X blocks content, deletes 600+ accounts after govt move on Grok obscene imagery row: Sources

Social media platform X blocked over 3,500 pieces of content and deleted over 600 accounts and has assured operations in compliance with the online content laws in India, sources told HT on Sunday.

The move came days after the government gave time to 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.

According to sources, X “admitted its mistake” and agreed to prevent the generation of obscene imagery on its platform.

On January 2, the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) wrote to X flagging what it called serious failures in preventing sexually explicit content. “The law of the land must prevail,” an official was quoted as saying in an earlier HT report.

The official warned X of losing legal protection under the Indian law, and added that other platforms would also see similar actions if their AI chatbots didn't comply. “In Grok’s case, the impact is accelerated because it operates on a platform like X," the official had said.

Officials said the ministry has made it clear 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.

X reportedly responded to the ministry's letter five days later, but the government said it was not satisfied with it. One official had described the response as X “essentially reproducing its own user policy across five pages and sending it to the ministry.” The government said that the core concerns raised in its letter to X were not addressed in the response received.

India is not alone is objecting to the generation of explicit content using Grok AI. Indonesia recently suspended the chatbot over concerns about AI-generated pornographic content, and the UK, France and Malaysia have also pushed back against the content generation in the past.