Indonesia and Malaysia temporarily block access to xAI’s Grok over non-consensual sexualized deepfakes

TechCrunch
TechCrunch
54m ago
Indonesia and Malaysia said they are temporarily blocking access to xAI’s chatbot Grok over sexualized, AI-generated imagery posted by Grok that often depicts real women and minors.
Indonesia and Malaysia temporarily block access to xAI’s Grok over non-consensual sexualized deepfakes
A What happened
Officials in Indonesia and Malaysia said they are temporarily blocking access to xAI’s chatbot Grok. The moves target a flood of sexualized, AI-generated imagery posted by Grok in response to user requests on X, often depicting real women and minors and sometimes depicting violence. Indonesia’s communications and digital minister Meutya Hafid said non-consensual sexual deepfakes are a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and citizens’ digital security. xAI restricted Grok’s AI image-generation feature to paying X subscribers, while the Grok app still allowed anyone to generate images.

Key insights

  • 1

    Indonesia framed non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a human-rights issue: Meutya Hafid said the practice violates human rights, dignity, and citizens’ security in the digital space.

  • 2

    Regulators in multiple jurisdictions signaled possible enforcement steps: India ordered action to prevent obscene content, the European Commission ordered document retention that could set up an investigation, and Ofcom said it will assess potential compliance issues that could warrant investigation.

  • 3

    xAI’s restriction on image generation did not cover the standalone Grok app: xAI limited the AI image-generation feature to paying X subscribers, while the Grok app still allowed anyone to generate images.

Takeaways

Indonesia and Malaysia imposed temporary blocks on Grok while other governments and regulators ordered actions or assessments and xAI made limited changes to image generation access.

Topics

Technology & Innovation Artificial Intelligence Social Media World & Politics Policy & Regulation Human Rights

Stay ahead with OwlBrief

Daily briefs that distill the world’s important events — clear, verified, and designed for understanding.

Newsletter

Get OwlBrief in your inbox

A fast, high-signal digest of the day’s most important events — plus the context that makes them make sense.

Quick to read. Useful all day.