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Updated - January 02, 2026 09:35 pm IST - NEW DELHI

Grok operates as a separate artificial intelligence firm under X’s holding firm, but maintains an account on the social media platform, automatically interacting with users. File | Photo Credit: Reuters

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Friday (January 2, 2026) directed social media platform X to undertake a “comprehensive technical, procedural and governance-level review” of its Grok chatbot, which allegedly has been responding to user requests to undress or alter clothing in women’s photos. Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi had raised an alarm over the issue in a letter to IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw earlier in the day.

X, formerly Twitter, did not have an immediate response on the issue. Grok operates as a separate artificial intelligence firm under X’s holding firm, but maintains an account on the social media platform, automatically interacting with users. Elon Musk, X’s billionaire owner, has frequently praised Grok’s relatively unfiltered responses, which incorporate few safeguards that other Big Tech firms have included on their large language models.

In a four-page letter to X’s Chief Compliance Officer for India, the IT Ministry wrote it has “been observed that [Grok] is being misused by users to create fake 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.” The letter said that “compliance with the IT Act and the IT Rules, 2021 is not optional, and that the statutory exemptions under Section 79 of the IT Act are conditional upon strict observance of due diligence obligations”.

Pointing out that even outside the IT Act, acts of this nature can “may independently attract penal action,” the Ministry said that X would have to “remove or disable access, without delay, to all content already generated or disseminated in violation of applicable laws, in strict compliance with the timelines prescribed under the IT Rules, 2021,without vitiating the evidence in any manner.”

By Monday (January 5, 2026), the firm must send an Action Taken Report in response to these directions, the letter said. “It is reiterated that non-compliance with the above 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.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Vaishnaw said that social media firms must “take responsibility” for the content on their platforms. Mr. Vaishnaw also pointed out that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT had recommended a strict law for obscene content on social media. The IT Ministry had sent an advisory earlier this week to all social media platforms directing them to proactively take down “obscene” and “pornographic” content.

Published - January 02, 2026 09:28 pm IST

India / technology (general) / Artificial Intelligence

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