The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a formal notice to the Indian representative of X, demanding the immediate removal of illegal, obscene, and pornographic content generated by its AI tool, Grok. The government has set a strict 72-hour deadline for the platform to submit a compliance report detailing the actions taken. This move comes as a response to growing concerns over AI-driven deepfakes and the violation of women’s privacy and dignity on the platform.
The intervention was triggered by a letter from Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, who alerted the Union Minister about the disturbing trend of Grok being used to morph images of women. The MP highlighted that AI prompts were being utilized to create vulgar representations of both private individuals and public figures, which were then circulated via fake and verified accounts. The government noted that such misuse constitutes a severe breach of the IT Act, 2000, and the IT Rules, 2021, which mandate that intermediaries must take proactive steps to curb sexually explicit content.
The notice emphasizes that X has failed to implement sufficient safeguards to prevent the generation of harmful content, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and deepfake pornography. The Ministry warned that failure to comply with the directive within the stipulated timeframe would result in the loss of “Safe Harbour” protection, making the platform legally liable for the illegal content posted by its users. The government has also instructed the platform to preserve evidence of offending accounts and prompts for potential legal proceedings.
