Social media platform X has admitted its mistake and assured the Government of India that it will work in accordance with Indian laws, government sources said, amid a controversy over the misuse of its AI tool Grok.
According to government sources, X has blocked around 3,500 pieces of content and deleted over 600 accounts found to be in violation of Indian laws. The platform has also conveyed that it will not allow obscene imagery on its platform going forward.
“X has accepted its mistake and said it will work as per the laws of India,” government sources said, adding that corrective measures have already been initiated.
The development comes after the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a letter to X on January 2, granting the platform 72 hours to comply with statutory obligations under Indian law.
Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, had seen soaring user demand in the past few days after its AI chatbot, Grok, went viral for the rather creepy bikini trend. The chatbot is also saw a rise in demand for other uses, as people use the chatbot to get context and information on various topics.
In its communication, MeitY raised serious concerns over the misuse of Grok AI, an AI-based service integrated on X. The Ministry said Grok was being misused to generate and circulate obscene, vulgar and sexually explicit images and videos, particularly targeting women, through prompts, image manipulation and synthetic outputs.
The Ministry stated that such content violates provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. It added that these acts undermine the dignity, privacy and safety of women and children and reflect a failure of platform-level safeguards.
MeitY reminded X that compliance with the IT Act and IT Rules, 2021 is mandatory for significant social media intermediaries and warned that non-compliance could result in the loss of safe harbour protection under Section 79 of the IT Act, along with further legal action under applicable laws.
The Ministry directed X to conduct a comprehensive technical and governance-level review of Grok, strictly enforce its user policies, remove unlawful content without delay and submit an Action Taken Report within 72 hours.
Government sources said X has now acknowledged the concerns raised by the Ministry, taken down the flagged content, and assured authorities of strengthened safeguards to prevent the generation and dissemination of obscene content on the platform.
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Published By:
Devika Bhattacharya
Published On:
Jan 11, 2026
