E-Paper
X sends 3rd response as govt weighs action
India's MeitY received a legal response from X regarding objectionable content from its AI chatbot, Grok, as scrutiny and potential action intensify.
The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) received a third response from Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, on January 20, marking the first time the company’s legal counsel, and not its compliance team, has formally responded to the government on objectionable content generated through its AI chatbot, Grok, senior officials said.
The latest reply, dated January 19 but received by the ministry on January 20, was sent by X’s legal counsel, Poovayya, even as the government weighs legal action over the continued circulation of objectionable content, officials said.
The official did not disclose the specifics of X’s response, which was sent after the government sent queries regarding how X and Grok should be treated in respect to either other.
“There is legal scrutiny from our side now,” a senior official said. “AI is on the rise. MeitY doesn’t want to regulate harshly. But if objectionable content continues, we will act.”
“We are not North Korea or China that we will right away block a social media company,” said one of the officials cited above, ruling out the question of blocking X in India, like a few countries have done in the recent past.
MeitY did not respond to HT’s request for comment. X did not respond to HT by the time of publication.
The question essentially has to do whether action should be initiated against X as a platform or against Grok as an AI system.
A key position that has now emerged within the ministry is that Grok will be treated as an “account” on X, and not as a separate platform, which could have implications for intermediary liability under the Information Technology Act.
“Should X be punished for the mistakes of Grok?” one official said. “X’s community guidelines should be in tandem with Indian laws and should keep in mind the cultural differences.”
The ministry is also mulling a possible ban on Grok alone, officials said.
Officials said MeitY is internally debating whether action should be initiated against X as a platform or against Grok as an AI system.
Since the last couple of weeks, Grok, developed by Musk’s AI and integrated into X, has come under intense global scrutiny after users exploited its image-generation and editing capabilities to create and share non-consensual, sexualised deepfake images of real people, including women and minors.
These images, often depicting undressed or sexually suggestive content, spread widely on X and alarmed regulators and rights groups. Governments in Europe, Asia and beyond have criticised the tool’s safeguards and opened inquiries, while X has partly restricted the feature to paying users amid widespread backlash.
