X accepts ‘mistake’, will work as per Indian laws to purge obscene imagery

New Delhi: Elon Musk-run X Corp has acknowledged the presence of obscene imagery on its platform, mostly created by its Grok AI, stating that it will comply with Indian laws and remove such content.

According to government sources on Sunday, the platform has blocked around 3,500 pieces of content and deleted more than 600 accounts in question. Sources further said that from now on, “X will not allow obscene imagery.”

Earlier, X Corp, which runs the social media platform X, submitted a written response to the Government on the latter’s notice to the company on the generation of “non-consensual sexual content by its Grok AI chatbot.”

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) cracked down on X Corp for failing to prevent the generation and circulation of obscene, nude and indecent content on its platform.

The government had directed X Corp to send an action taken report (ATR) “towards immediate compliance for prevention of hosting, generation, publication or transmission, sharing or uploading of obscene, nude, indecent and explicit content through the misuse of AI-based services like ‘Grok’ and xAl’s other services” within 72 hours.

The government directive states that “non-compliance with these 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, under the IT Act, the IT Rules, the BNSS, the BNS and other applicable laws”.

The ministry directed X to conduct a comprehensive review of Grok’s technical and governance frameworks to prevent the generation of unlawful content. It said Grok must enforce strict user policies, including suspension and termination of violators. All offending content should be immediately removed without tampering with evidence, it said.

X Corp said it continues to take action against illegal content on its social media platform, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), and is working with local governments and law enforcement agencies as necessary.

Musk also posted that “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”

IANS