Overview
- The IT Ministry issued a formal notice citing lapses in statutory due diligence and warned that failure to comply could trigger penalties and loss of safe-harbour protections under the IT Act, IT Rules, BNSS and BNS.
- Authorities directed X to remove unlawful posts, act against offending accounts and file an Action Taken Report, while conducting a comprehensive audit of Grok’s design, prompt handling, output generation, image safety and governance.
- Public posts show users tagging Grok to sexualise photos of real people with outputs appearing in reply threads, a misuse linked to Grok’s permissive features such as an age-gated Spicy mode that enables sexually suggestive content.
- xAI and Grok acknowledged misuse and safeguard lapses, said some features were hidden and protections tightened, urged reporting of incidents and admitted isolated cases involving minors in minimal clothing that require urgent fixes.
- Political and legal pressure escalated after MP Priyanka Chaturvedi’s complaint, with a senior minister signaling possible new regulation and French authorities referring Grok-generated content involving minors to prosecutors.