Indonesia has lifted its ban on the xAI chatbot Grok, following similar decisions by Malaysia and the Philippines. These Southeast Asian nations initially banned Grok after it was used to generate a flood of nonconsensual, sexualized imagery on X, which is now a subsidiary of xAI. The images included depictions of real women and minors. Separate analyses by The New York Times and the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that in late December and January, Grok was used to create at least 1.8 million sexualized images of women.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs stated it removed the ban after receiving a letter from X outlining concrete steps for service improvements and the prevention of misuse. Alexander Sabar, the ministry’s director general of digital space monitoring, clarified that the lift is conditional and the ban could be reinstated if further violations are discovered. Malaysia and the Philippines had lifted their own bans earlier, on January 23.
The deepfakes created by Grok have prompted criticism and investigations from governments globally, though outright bans remain rare. In the United States, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced an investigation into xAI and sent a cease-and-desist letter ordering the company to immediately stop the production of such images.
xAI appears to have implemented some measures to restrict Grok, such as limiting its AI image generation feature to paying subscribers on X. CEO Elon Musk has stated that anyone using Grok to create illegal content will face consequences as if they uploaded the content directly. He also claimed he is not aware of any naked underage images generated by the chatbot.
In unrelated developments, documents released by the Justice Department regarding Jeffrey Epstein include at least sixteen emails between Musk and Epstein from 2012 and 2013. In the correspondence, Musk asked about visiting Epstein’s Caribbean island and inquired about the “wildest party” there. Epstein had previously pleaded guilty to procuring an underage girl for prostitution in 2008.
Meanwhile, xAI is reportedly in talks to merge with two of Musk’s other companies, SpaceX and Tesla, ahead of a potential SpaceX initial public offering.