India has ordered Elon Musk’s X to make immediate technical and procedural changes to its AI chatbot Grok after users and lawmakers flagged the creation of “obscene” content, including AI-altered images of women created using the tool.
On Friday, India’s IT ministry issued an order directing Musk’s X to take remedial measures on Grok, including restricting the creation of content that includes “nudity, sexuality, sexually explicit or otherwise illegal” material. The ministry also gave the social media platform 72 hours to submit a report on the measures it has taken to prevent the hosting or dissemination of content deemed “obscene, pornographic, vulgar, obscene, sexually explicit, pedophile or otherwise prohibited by law.”
The order, reviewed by TechCrunch, warned that non-compliance could jeopardize X’s “safe harbor” protections — legal immunity from liability for user-generated content under Indian law.
India’s move follows concerns raised by users who shared examples of Grok being asked to alter images of people — mostly women — to appear to be wearing bikinis, sparking a formal complaint by Indian MP Priyanka Chaturvedi. Separately, recent reports highlighted cases where chatbot AI created sexual images with minorsan X issue recognized earlier on Friday was caused by gaps in security measures. These images were later removed.
However, images created using Grok that made the women appear to be wearing bikinis through AI manipulation remained accessible on X at the time of publication, TechCrunch found.
The latest order comes days after India’s IT ministry issued a broader advisory on Monday, which was also reviewed by TechCrunch, to social media platforms, reminding them that compliance with local laws governing obscene and sexual content is a condition for maintaining legal immunity from liability for user-generated material. The advisory urged companies to strengthen internal safeguards and warned that failure to do so could lead to legal action under India’s IT and criminal laws.
“It is reiterated that failure to comply with the above requirements will be taken seriously and may result in strict legal consequences against your platform, its operators and platform users who violate the law, without further notice,” the order warned.
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The Indian government said failure to comply could lead to action against X under India’s IT and criminal laws.
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 accountable for AI-generated content. Any tightening of enforcement in the country could have ripple effects for global technology companies that operate in multiple jurisdictions.
The order comes as Musk’s X continues to challenge aspects of India’s content regulation rules in court, arguing that the federal government’s takedown powers risk overreaching, even as the platform has complied with the majority of blocking guidelines. At the same time, Grok is increasingly being used by X-users for fact-checking and real-time news commentary, making its results more visible — and more politically sensitive — than those of individual AI tools.
X and xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Indian government order.
