Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked access to Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, becoming the first countries to take such action over concerns that it is being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images, according to Associated Press reporting.
Indonesia temporarily blocked access on Saturday, and Malaysia followed on Sunday. Both governments said existing controls were not preventing the creation and spread of fake pornographic content, particularly involving women and minors.
Indonesian Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said the government views nonconsensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity and citizens’ safety in the digital space. “The government sees nonconsensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity and the safety of citizens in the digital space,” Hafid said in a statement.
In Indonesia, Alexander Sabar, director-general of digital space supervision, said initial findings showed Grok lacks effective safeguards to stop users from creating and distributing pornographic content based on real photos of Indonesian residents. Sabar said the practices risk violating privacy and image rights when photos are manipulated or shared without consent.
Malaysia’s communications and multimedia regulator said it had seen repeated misuse of Grok to generate obscene, sexually explicit and nonconsensual manipulated images, including content involving women and minors. The regulator said it issued notices this month to X Corp. and xAI demanding stronger safeguards.
The Malaysian regulator said the block was imposed as a preventive and proportionate measure while legal and regulatory processes were ongoing, and that access would remain blocked until effective safeguards were in place.
The scrutiny has extended beyond Southeast Asia. The AP report said Grok has faced criticism in the European Union, India, France and the United Kingdom, where officials said they were moving to criminalize “nudification apps.” Britain’s media regulator, Ofcom, also launched an investigation into whether Grok broke the law by allowing users to share sexualized images of children.
Ofcom said Grok-generated images of children being sexualized or people being undressed may amount to pornography or child sexual abuse material. In Parliament, Technology Secretary Liz Kendall called the AI-generated images “weapons of abuse” and said the Labour government would target the source of the problem by making it a crime for companies to supply tools to create nude images without consent.
Kendall said X could face a possible Ofcom fine of up to 10% of its qualifying global revenue depending on the investigation’s outcome and a possible court order blocking access to the site. The AP report added that Musk called the British government “fascist” and said it was trying to stifle free speech.
Grok launched in 2023 and was free to use on X. The report said an image generator feature, Grok Imagine, was added last year and included a so-called spicy mode that could generate adult content. It also said that last week, Grok limited image generation and editing to paying users following a global backlash over sexualized deepfakes, but critics said the change did not fully address the problem.
The AP said an emailed request for comment to xAI resulted in an automated reply from a media support address stating “Legacy Media Lies,” and that the same message was received from a different address when asked about the backlash.