India has ordered Elon Musk’s X to implement immediate technical and procedural changes to its AI chatbot Grok. This directive follows reports from users and lawmakers about the tool generating “obscene” content, including AI-altered images of women.
On Friday, India’s IT ministry issued the order, directing X to take corrective action. This includes restricting Grok’s ability to generate content involving nudity, sexualization, sexually explicit material, or any other unlawful material. The ministry gave the social media platform 72 hours to submit a report detailing the steps taken to prevent the hosting or dissemination of content deemed obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, pedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under Indian law.
The order warned that failure to comply could jeopardize X’s “safe harbor” protections. These protections provide legal immunity from liability for user-generated content under Indian law.
India’s move comes after users shared examples of Grok being prompted to alter images of individuals, primarily women, to make them appear to be wearing bikinis. This prompted a formal complaint from Indian parliamentarian Priyanka Chaturvedi. Separately, recent reports flagged instances where the AI chatbot generated sexualized images involving minors, an issue X acknowledged earlier on Friday was caused by lapses in safeguards. Those specific images were later taken down.
However, at the time of publication, TechCrunch found that images generated using Grok which made women appear to be wearing bikinis through AI alteration remained accessible on X.
This latest order follows a broader advisory issued by the Indian IT ministry on Monday to social media platforms. That advisory reminded companies that compliance with local laws governing obscene and sexually explicit content is a prerequisite for retaining legal immunity. It urged platforms to strengthen internal safeguards and warned that failure could invite legal action under India’s IT and criminal laws.
The order stated that non-compliance would be viewed seriously and could result in strict legal consequences against the platform, its responsible officers, and violating users, without further notice.
The Indian government said non-compliance could lead to action against X under India’s IT law and criminal statutes.
India, one of the world’s biggest digital markets, has emerged as a critical test case for how far governments are willing to go in holding platforms responsible for AI-generated content. Any tightening of enforcement in the country could have ripple effects for global technology companies operating across multiple jurisdictions.
This order comes as Musk’s X continues to challenge aspects of India’s content regulation rules in court. The platform argues that federal government takedown powers risk overreach, even as it has complied with a majority of blocking directives. Simultaneously, Grok has been increasingly used by X users for real-time fact-checking and commentary on news events, making its outputs more visible and politically sensitive than those of standalone AI tools.
X and xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Indian government’s order.