The Centre has written to social media platform X (formerly Twitter), over the alleged misuse of its AI-powered service Grok for generating and circulating obscene and sexually explicit content. It has sought an Action Taken Report (ATR) within 72 hours.
Govt cracks down on X: Flags AI-driven obscene content, warns of legal action. (Representation image)
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has written to social media platform X (formerly Twitter), over the alleged misuse of its AI-powered service Grok for generating and circulating obscene and sexually explicit content. The Centre has sought an Action Taken Report (ATR) within 72 hours towards immediate compliance for prevention of hosting, generation and uploading of nude and indecent content.
In a letter addressed to the Chief Compliance Officer of X Corp’s India Operations, the Ministry said the platform had failed to observe statutory due diligence obligations under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and other applicable laws.
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MeitY warned that continued non-compliance could lead to the loss of exemption from liability under section 79 of the IT Act, besides attracting penal action under the IT Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
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The Ministry directed X to strictly desist from hosting, displaying, uploading, publishing, transmitting, storing, or sharing any content that is obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, or paedophilic, or otherwise prohibited by law, including content generated through AI-based tools such as Grok and other AI services.
MeitY said it had received multiple representations, including from parliamentary stakeholders and through public discourse, alleging that certain categories of content circulating on X may not be in compliance with Indian laws on decency and obscenity. The Ministry specifically pointed to Grok AI being misused to create fake accounts and generate or circulate obscene images and videos of women.
“This misuse is not limited to fake accounts but also targets women who have uploaded their own images or videos, through prompts, image manipulation and synthetic outputs,” the letter said, adding that such conduct reflects “a serious failure of platform-level safeguards and enforcement mechanisms.”
The Ministry expressed the view that X is not adequately adhering to the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
MeitY has asked X to immediately conduct a comprehensive technical, procedural, and governance-level review of the Grok application, including its prompt processing, large language model-based output generation, image handling, and safety guardrails, to ensure it does not generate or facilitate nudity, sexualisation or other unlawful content.
The Ministry also directed the platform to strictly enforce its user terms of service and AI usage policies, including deterrent measures such as suspension or termination of violating accounts. X has been asked to remove or disable access to all unlawful content without delay, in line with timelines prescribed under the IT Rules, 2021, while preserving evidence.
The social media platform X has been instructed to submit a detailed ATR within 72 hours. The report must include details of technical and organisational measures taken or proposed for Grok, the role and oversight of the Chief Compliance Officer, actions taken against offending content and users, and mechanisms to ensure compliance with mandatory reporting requirements under Section 33 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi has welcomed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s swift action against X for generating objectionable content targeting women.
In a statement on X, Chaturvedi thanked Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw for promptly taking note of her representation and for issuing a letter to X seeking compliance. She said the AI-driven tool was being misused to generate problematic content about women through prompts that undermine their dignity, violate consent and further silence them on digital platforms.
Earlier this week, Chaturvedi had written to the Union IT Minister flagging concerns over the alleged misuse of artificial intelligence tools on social media platforms to post objectionable images of women, often through fake accounts. In her letter, she urged the government to enforce stronger safeguards and accountability mechanisms for AI-driven tools to ensure women’s safety online.
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