Indonesia, Malaysia block Grok after wave of sexualized AI images

Officials in both countries said the decision was prompted by content that often depicted real women and minors, and in some cases included violent themes.

Indonesia’s communications and digital minister, Meutya Hafid, said in a statement that the government considers non-consensual sexual deepfakes a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and the safety of citizens in the digital space. The ministry has also summoned representatives of X to discuss the issue and possible corrective measures.

Malaysia announced a similar ban shortly afterward, marking the first formal government actions to fully block access to the chatbot.

Other governments have taken varied steps over the past week. India’s IT ministry has ordered X to prevent Grok from generating obscene content. The European Commission has instructed the company to preserve all documents related to Grok, a move widely seen as a potential precursor to a formal investigation.

In the United Kingdom, communications regulator Ofcom said it would conduct a rapid assessment to determine whether the service breaches existing rules. In contrast, the United States government has not announced any official action.

xAI initially responded by posting an apology on the Grok account, acknowledging that one post had violated ethical standards and may have breached United States laws related to child sexual abuse material. The company later limited AI image generation to paying subscribers on X. However, this restriction did not appear to apply to the standalone Grok app, which continued to allow image generation by all users.

Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that the U.S. War Department partnered with xAI to integrate the company’s most advanced AI systems into GenAI.mil, the department’s recently launched custom AI platform.