India has ordered Elon Musk’s X to make rapid technical and procedural modifications to its AI chatbot Grok after customers and lawmakers flagged the technology of “obscene” content material, together with AI-altered pictures of ladies created utilizing the instrument.
On Friday, India’s IT ministry issued the order directing Musk’s X to take corrective motion on Grok, together with limiting the technology of content material involving “nudity, sexualization, sexually specific, or in any other case illegal” materials. The ministry additionally gave the social media platform 72 hours to submit an action-taken report detailing the steps it has taken to stop the internet hosting or dissemination of content material deemed “obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually specific, pedophilic, or in any other case prohibited underneath regulation.”
The order, reviewed by TechCrunch, warned that failure to conform may jeopardize X’s “secure harbor” protections — authorized immunity from legal responsibility for user-generated content material underneath Indian regulation.
India’s transfer follows considerations raised by customers who shared examples of Grok being prompted to change pictures of people — primarily girls — to make them look like sporting bikinis, prompting a formal complaint from Indian parliamentarian Priyanka Chaturvedi. Individually, current reviews flagged cases wherein the AI chatbot generated sexualized images involving minors, a difficulty X acknowledged earlier on Friday was attributable to lapses in safeguards. These pictures have been later taken down.
Nevertheless, pictures generated utilizing Grok that made girls look like sporting bikinis by way of AI alteration remained accessible on X on the time of publication, TechCrunch discovered.
The most recent order comes days after the Indian IT ministry issued a broader advisory on Monday, which was additionally reviewed by TechCrunch, to social media platforms, reminding them that compliance with native legal guidelines governing obscene and sexually specific content material is a prerequisite for retaining authorized immunity from legal responsibility for user-generated materials. The advisory urged corporations to strengthen inner safeguards and warned that failure to take action may invite authorized motion underneath India’s IT and felony legal guidelines.
“It’s reiterated that non-compliance with the above necessities shall be considered critically and will lead to strict authorized penalties towards your platform, its accountable officers and the customers on the platform who violate the regulation, with none additional discover,” the order warned.
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The Indian authorities mentioned noncompliance may result in motion towards X underneath India’s IT regulation and felony statutes.
India, one of many world’s largest digital markets, has emerged as a essential check case for the way far governments are keen to go in holding platforms answerable for AI-generated content material. Any tightening of enforcement within the nation may have ripple results for world know-how corporations working throughout a number of jurisdictions.
The order comes as Musk’s X continues to problem facets of India’s content material regulation guidelines in court docket, arguing that federal authorities takedown powers danger overreach, even because the platform has complied with a majority of blocking directives. On the identical time, Grok has been more and more utilized by X customers for real-time fact-checking and commentary on information occasions, making its outputs extra seen — and extra politically delicate — than these of stand-alone AI instruments.
X and xAI didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon the Indian authorities’s order.
