Indonesia and Malaysia block Grok over non-consensual, sexualized deepfakes

Jakarta: Indonesia and Malaysia are blocking access to Grok, an AI chatbot. Officials are worried about many harmful images Grok generated. These images show real women and even minors, sometimes in violent ways. The actions are strong responses to a serious problem online.

Indonesia’s communications minister, Meutya Hafid, said the creation of non-consensual deepfakes is a serious violation of rights and dignity. The ministry also called X officials to discuss the issue. Malaysia announced a similar ban soon after.

Other countries are reacting too. India asked xAI to stop Grok from making bad content. The European Commission is looking into Grok and asked for related documents. In the UK, Ofcom is checking for possible compliance problems.

In the US, the Trump administration hasn’t said much. But Democrats want Apple and Google to take X off their app stores. xAI apologized, admitting some posts went against rules. They then limited image generation to paying users, but this did not affect the Grok app.

Elon Musk, the CEO of xAI, commented that the UK government seems ready to censor. This article has been updated to include Malaysia’s ban on Grok.