Grok AI Controversy: Social media platform X has acknowledged gaps in its content moderation standards, according to government sources. The company has informed the government that it will operate in full accordance with all applicable laws and regulations in India. As part of corrective measures, X has already blocked 3,500 pieces of content and deleted more than 600 accounts. Furthermore, the platform has assured the authorities that it will not permit obscene imagery on X going forward.
The issue came to light after concerns were raised over the circulation of obscene and sexually explicit content on the platform, including material allegedly generated or amplified through its Artificial Intelligence tool, Grok.
MeitY Action
Last week Ministry of Electronics and Infromation Technology (MeitY) sent a notice to Chief Compliance Officer of X Corp (Formerly Twitter), India Operations and sought a detailed action taken report within 72 hours towards immediate Compliance or prevention of hosting, generation, publication, transmission, sharing or uploading of obscene, nude, indecent and sexually explicit content through the misuse of AI based services like Grok and x AI's other services.
In its letter to X's Chief Compliance Officer for India operations, MeitY directed the platform to strictly refrain from allowing content that is "obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, paedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under any law for the time being in force."
"Failure to observe such due diligence obligations shall result in the loss of the exemption from liability under section 79 of the IT Act, and you shall also be liable for consequential action as provided under any law, including the IT Act and BNS," the letter had said.
'Shameful use of AI'
Meanwhile, Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi criticised the social media platform X for restricting problematic and sexualised image generation through Grok only to paid users instead of stopping it altogether.
In her X post, she alleged that the move effectively allows unauthorised misuse of images of women and children, putting them at risk. She said the platform appears to be monetising reprehensible behaviour under the guise of creativity and innovation, calling it a 'shameful use of AI.'
Meanwhile, Indonesia has become the first country to completely suspend access to Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk's company xAI, amid growing global concerns over the misuse of AI to create sexualised images without consent, CBS news reported.
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