IT Ministry issues notice to 'X', demands action against misuse by Grok's ‘bikini’ trend

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued a stern notice to Elon Musk’s social media platform X, citing a massive failure in compliance with India's IT Rules. The government’s move comes after reports surfaced regarding the misuse of X’s proprietary artificial intelligence tool, Grok. It is alleged that the tool is being used to generate and circulate obscene, sexually explicit, and derogatory content, specifically targeting women and children, thereby violating privacy and online safety norms.

The ministry's directive specifically points out that platforms are legally bound to perform due diligence to prevent the circulation of unlawful content. MeitY has ordered X to immediately strengthen the technical safeguards of Grok to block such prompts. Furthermore, the platform has been instructed to remove all illegal AI-generated content and take strict action against the accounts responsible for these violations. A detailed Action Taken Report (ATR) must be submitted to the government within 72 hours.

The intervention followed an urgent plea from Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, who wrote to Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. She flagged a disturbing trend where users were uploading photos of women and using Grok to alter them into sexualized images. Chaturvedi emphasized that the lack of guardrails on AI tools is posing a severe threat to women's dignity. The government has warned that if X fails to comply, it may lose its "safe harbour" protection, making it legally liable for all third-party content on its platform.