Malaysia blocks Elon Musk’s Grok AI over fake, sexualised images | Grok AI
Malaysia has become the second country to temporarily block access to Elon Musk’s Grok following a global backlash against the AI tool and its ability to produce fake, sexualized images.
Malaysia said it would restrict access to Grok until effective security measures were implemented, a day after a similar action was taken by Indonesia.
Various governments and regulators have taken action over Grok’s image tool, which was placed on the
xAI, the Musk-led company that developed Grok, said last week that the ability to create and edit images in X would be “limited to paying subscribers.” Such users have provided personal details to the company and can be identified in case of misuse of the function.
However, this move did little to calm the anger towards Grok. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said on Sunday it would restrict access to Grok due to the AI tool’s ability to “generate obscene, sexually explicit, indecent, grossly offensive and non-consensual manipulated images, including content involving women and minors.”
Grok also operates through a separate website and app. It was unclear whether the bans in Malaysia and Indonesia applied to Grok in X, the Grok site and app, or both. The Guardian received reports from Indonesia that people were still able to use Grok through the app and X, but one reported that the app was too slow.
MCMC said it issued notices to X and xAI this month to request the implementation of effective technical and supervisory measures. However, MCMC said the responses it received relied mostly on user-initiated reporting mechanisms and failed to address the inherent risks posed by Grok, adding that it felt this was insufficient to prevent harm or ensure legal compliance.
On Saturday, Indonesia also temporarily blocked the chatbot, and the country’s communications and digital minister, Meutya Hafid, said the government “considers the practice of non-consensual sexual fraud a serious violation of human rights, dignity and security of citizens in the digital space.”
The UK has also raised the possibility of a ban if action is not taken, while Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese on Saturday condemned the use of generative AI to exploit or sexualize people without their consent as “disgusting”.
Regulators and politicians across Europe have also issued warnings in recent weeks.
Germany’s Minister of Culture and Media, Wolfram Weimer, called on the European Commission to take legal steps and warned about the “industrialization of sexual harassment”.
Italy’s data protection authority has said that using artificial intelligence tools to create explicit images of people without their consent could lead to serious privacy breaches and, in some cases, criminal offences.
In France, government ministers said this month they had referred sexually explicit content created by Grok circulating on X to prosecutors and warned French media regulator Arcom.
India’s ministry of IT and electronics sent an official notice to
