Malaysia, Indonesia become first to block Musk’s Grok over AI deepfakes
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia and Indonesia became the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and non-consensual images.
These measures reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools capable of producing realistic images, audio and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, accessible through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or in sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children.
Regulators in the two Southeast Asian countries said existing controls did not prevent the creation and distribution of fake pornographic content, particularly involving women and minors. The Indonesian government temporarily blocked access to Grok on Saturday, followed by Malaysia’s on Sunday.
“The government considers non-consensual sexual deepfakes a serious violation of the human rights, dignity and security of citizens in the digital space,” Indonesian Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs Meutya Hafid said in a statement on Saturday.
The ministry said the move aims to protect women, children and the wider community from fake pornographic content generated using AI.
Initial findings showed that Grok does not have effective safeguards to prevent users from creating and distributing pornographic content based on real photos of Indonesian residents, Alexander Sabar, general director of digital space supervision, said in a separate statement. He said such practices risk violating privacy and publicity rights when photos are manipulated or shared without consent, causing psychological, social and reputational harm.
In Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission on Sunday ordered a temporary restriction on Grok after what it called “repeated misuse” of the tool to generate obscene, sexually explicit and non-consensual manipulated images, including content involving women and minors.
The regulator said notices issued this month to X Corp. and xAI demanding stricter safeguards had prompted responses that relied primarily on user reporting mechanisms.
“The restriction is imposed as a preventative and proportionate measure while legal and regulatory processes are ongoing,” the statement said, adding that access will remain blocked until effective safeguards are put in place.
Launching in 2023, Grok is free on X. Users can ask it questions on the social media platform and tag posts they directly created or replies to other users’ posts. Last summer, the company added an image generation feature, Grok Imagine, which included a “spicy mode” capable of generating adult content.
The restrictions in Southeast Asia come as Grok faces increasing scrutiny elsewhere, including in the European Union, Britain, India and France. Grok last week limited image generation and editing to paying users following a global backlash against sexualized deepfakes of people, but critics say that hasn’t entirely solved the problem.
An attempt by The Associated Press to request comment via email from xAI resulted in an automatic response from the media support email address reading “Legacy Media Lies.” This was the same message received from another email when asked to comment on the global reaction.
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Tarigan reported from Jakarta, Indonesia.
