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 generation of “obscene” content, including AI-altered images of women created using the tool.
On Friday, India’s IT ministry issued the order directing Musk’s X to take corrective action on Grok, including restricting the generation of content involving “nudity, sexualization, sexually explicit, or otherwise unlawful” material. The ministry also gave the social media platform 72 hours to submit an action-taken report detailing the steps it has taken to prevent the hosting or dissemination of content deemed “obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, pedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under law.”
The order, reviewed by TechCrunch, warned that failure to comply 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 prompted to alter images of individuals — primarily women — to make them appear to be wearing bikinis, prompting a formal complaint from Indian parliamentarian Priyanka Chaturvedi. Separately, recent reports flagged instances in which the AI chatbot generated sexualized images involving minors, an issue X acknowledged earlier on Friday was caused by lapses in safeguards. Those images were later taken down.
However, images generated using Grok that made women appear to be wearing bikinis through AI alteration remained accessible on X at the time of publication, TechCrunch found.
The latest order comes days after the Indian 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 sexually explicit content is a prerequisite for retaining legal immunity from liability for user-generated material. The advisory urged companies to strengthen internal safeguards and warned that failure to do so could invite legal action under India’s IT and criminal laws.
“It is reiterated that non-compliance with the above requirements shall be viewed seriously and may result in strict legal consequences against your platform, its responsible officers and the users on the platform who violate the law, without any further notice,” the order warned.
Techcrunch event Join the Disrupt 2026 Waitlist Add yourself to the Disrupt 2026 waitlist to be first in line when Early Bird tickets drop. Past Disrupts have brought Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, Phia, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, and Vinod Khosla to the stages — part of 250+ industry leaders driving 200+ sessions built to fuel your growth and sharpen your edge. Plus, meet the hundreds of startups innovating across every sector. Join the Disrupt 2026 Waitlist Add yourself to the Disrupt 2026 waitlist to be first in line when Early Bird tickets drop. Past Disrupts have brought Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, Phia, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, and Vinod Khosla to the stages — part of 250+ industry leaders driving 200+ sessions built to fuel your growth and sharpen your edge. Plus, meet the hundreds of startups innovating across every sector. San Francisco | WAITLIST NOW
The Indian government said noncompliance could lead to action against X under India’s IT law and criminal statutes.
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 responsible for AI-generated content. Any tightening of enforcement in the country could have ripple effects for global technology companies operating across multiple jurisdictions.
... continue reading