X Blocks Posts, Deletes Accounts In Big Move Over Grok Obscenity: Sources

Social media platform X has blocked 3,500 posts and deleted 600 accounts after the Centre flagged obscene content on the website, according to government sources. The sources said that X has assured the government that it won't allow obscene content on its platform and will follow government regulations.

This comes a week after the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology flagged obscene content on X, formerly Twitter. The ministry had asked X Corp, helmed by billionaire Elon Musk, for an action taken report "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 Al-based services like 'Grok' and xAl's other services" within 72 hours.

The Centre's directive warned that non-compliance shall be "viewed seriously and may result in strict legal consequences" against the platform and officers concerned under Indian laws.

The ministry's letter said it has been observed that users are misusing Grok to create accounts to host, generate, publish, or share obscene images or videos of women in a derogatory or vulgar manner to indecently denigrate them.

The ministry asked X to conduct a comprehensive review of Grok's technical and governance frameworks to prevent the generation of such content. The notice said Grok, X's AI assistant, must enforce strict user policies, including suspension and termination of violators.

The ministry said non-compliance by X could result in loss of safe harbour under Section 79 of the IT Act and trigger penal action under multiple laws, including the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Indecent Representation of Women Act, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

The letter said this is not limited to the creation of fake accounts but also targets women who host or publish their images or videos, through prompts, image manipulation, and synthetic outputs. "Such conduct reflects a serious failure of platform-level safeguards and enforcement mechanisms, and amounts to gross misuse of artificial intelligence technologies in violation of applicable laws," the letter stated.