Hajra Naz
Officials in Indonesia and Malaysia say they have temporarily blocked access to xAI’s chatbot, Grok, marking the strongest government response yet to a wave of sexualized, AI-generated images produced by the tool.
The decision follows growing outrage over Grok-generated imagery that has circulated widely on X, often depicting real women and minors in explicit scenarios, and in some cases involving violent content. Users could generate images directly through prompts on the platform. X and xAI operate under the same corporate umbrella.
In a statement shared Saturday with The Guardian and other outlets, Indonesia’s Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs Meutya Hafid said the government considers non-consensual sexual deepfakes to be a serious offense.
“The government views the practice of non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and the security of citizens in the digital space,” Hafid said.
Indonesia’s communications ministry has also reportedly summoned representatives from X to address the issue directly.
According to The New York Times, Malaysia announced a similar block on Sunday, citing concerns over harmful and unlawful AI-generated content.
The actions come amid diverging responses from governments worldwide. In India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ordered X to take steps to prevent Grok from producing obscene material. The European Commission, meanwhile, has instructed the company to preserve all internal documents related to Grok, a move widely seen as a precursor to a potential formal investigation.
In the United Kingdom, the communications regulator Ofcom stated that it would conduct a “swift assessment” to determine whether Grok is in breach of local regulations and whether enforcement action is warranted. Prime Minister Keir Starmer later said in an interview that Ofcom has his “full support” to act if violations are found.
The response in the United States, however, has been notably muted. The Trump administration has not publicly commented on the controversy, despite mounting scrutiny. xAI CEO Elon Musk is a major donor to Trump and led the administration’s controversial Department of Government Efficiency last year. At the same time, Democratic senators have urged Apple and Google to remove X from their app stores, citing the platform’s role in distributing harmful AI-generated content.
Read More: “Remove Her Clothes”: Grok Image Feature Draws International Criticism Over AI Safety Failures
xAI initially addressed the backlash by posting what appeared to be a first-person apology from the Grok account itself, acknowledging that one of its outputs had “violated ethical standards and potentially U.S. laws” related to child sexual abuse material.
The company later restricted Grok’s image-generation feature to paying X subscribers, though the move appeared limited in scope. The standalone Grok app continued to allow users to generate images without restrictions.
Responding to criticism over why the U.K. government appeared to be singling out Grok rather than other AI image-generation tools, Musk pushed back on X, writing, “They want any excuse for censorship.”
