Centre cracks down on X over AI-driven obscene, nude & indecent content

New Delhi, Jan 2 (IANS) The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Friday cracked down on X Corp for failing to prevent the generation and circulation of obscene, nude and indecent content on its platform.

The government has directed X Corp to send an action taken report (ATR) “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 directive states that “non-compliance with these requirements shall be viewed seriously and may result in strict legal consequences against your platform, its responsible officers and the users on the platform who violate the law, without any further notice, under the IT Act, the IT Rules, the BNSS, the BNS and other applicable laws”.

The ministry directed X to conduct a comprehensive review of Grok’s technical and governance frameworks to prevent the generation of unlawful content.

It said Grok must enforce strict user policies, including suspension and termination of violators. All offending content should be immediately removed without tampering with evidence, it said.

The MeitY said non-compliance could lead to loss of safe harbour under Section 79 of the IT Act and trigger penal action under multiple laws, including the BNS, the Indecent Representation of Women Act, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

In the letter to X, the ministry said that it is of the view that the regulatory provisions under the Information Technology Act are not adequately adhered to by its platform, in relation to obscene, indecent, vulgar, pornographic, paedophilic, or otherwise unlawful or harmful content, which are potentially violative of extant laws.

The aforesaid acts and omissions are viewed with grave concern, as they have the effect of violating the dignity, privacy and safety of women and children, normalising sexual harassment and exploitation in digital spaces, and undermining the statutory due diligence framework applicable to intermediaries operating in India, the letter pointed out.

The letter also states that it has especially been observed that the service Grok AI developed by X and integrated and made available on the X platform, is being misused by users to create accounts to host, generate, publish, or share obscene images or videos of women in a derogatory or vulgar manner in order to indecently denigrate them.

Importantly, 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 states.

A copy of the notice has also been sent to key ministries, commissions, and state authorities, signalling coordinated action on obscenity that is being promoted through AI.

sps/vd