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Indonesia has blocked X’s Grok chatbot amid controversy over it generating non-consensual, sexually suggestive deepfake images.
The chatbot was hit with widespread criticism last week after it created suggestive images of minors wearing bikinis. The pictures were part of a viral trend on the social media platform that saw people asking Grok to create scantily clad images of women, including celebrities and public figures. Some nonprofits alleged that many of Grok's targets were underage.
“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,” the country's Communications and Digital Minister, Meutya Hafid, tells Reuters.
Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most-populous country and the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, has strict pornography laws. Though Grok has been blocked, the wider X platform remains accessible.
Regulators in several other countries have voiced concerns or threatened potential action. Earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Grok’s generation of sexualized deepfakes was unlawful. “This is disgraceful. It’s disgusting,” Starmer told Greatest Hits Radio. “And it’s not to be tolerated.”
While a potential ban was not explicitly mentioned, government sources told BBC News they would expect Ofcom, the UK's media regulator, "to use all powers at its disposal in regard to Grok and X,” adding that they had been in contact with both X and xAI. Meanwhile, European Union regulators said earlier this week they are “very seriously looking” into allegations that Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok is being used to generate and share sexually explicit, childlike images.
X recently warned users that anyone "using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.” It also restricted the chatbot's image-generation capabilities on X to Premium subscribers.
There's plenty of political outcry being directed toward Grok domestically as well. Several Democratic senators have called on Apple and Google to pull the Grok and X apps from their app stores. Sens. Ron Wyden, Edward Markey, and Ben Ray Luján allege that the chatbot's outputs violated both platforms' terms and conditions.