‘Remove obscene content, otherwise strict action will be taken’, why is the government upset with Musk’s

The central government has become very strict on obscene and objectionable content on Elon Musk’s social media platform X. In the notice, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has ordered the immediate removal of obscene content generated through Grok AI. It also said that if the company does not take any action then it will have to face action. Apart from the content, the ministry has also directed to take action against users and accounts. Now it remains to be seen what action X takes on the instructions of the Central Government.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology wrote to the India Chief Compliance Officer of X Corp over non-compliance of legal due diligence responsibilities under the Information Technology Act- 2000 and Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules- 2021. In this, instructions were given to remove and stop obscene, nude, indecent and sexually explicit content created by AI.

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In its order, the ministry said, ‘X is directed to remove or disable access to all content in violation of applicable laws without any delay.’ Apart from this, the company has been directed to submit the Action Taken Report (ATR) within 72 hours. The order said that the government has received information that some content on X is not in accordance with the laws related to decency and obscenity. This is a gross misuse of Artificial Intelligence technology. This shows a serious failure in security at the platform level and the way it is implemented.

The government said that some users are misusing X’s Grok AI. Apart from making obscene pictures and videos of women, they are also publishing and sharing them so that women can be wrongly defamed. The ministry further said that this issue is not limited to just creating fake accounts, but women are also being targeted who host or publish their images or videos through prompts, image manipulation and synthetic output.

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X will have to review Grok.

The ministry has directed X to conduct a technical and governance-level review of its Grok AI. This will involve reviewing Grok’s prompt-processing, output generation, image handling and security guardrails to ensure that the application does not promote nudity, sexual relations or any illegal content.

warning of strict action

The Central Government also warned X in a strict tone of action. The order said that non-compliance of instructions will be taken seriously. As a result, without any notice, strict action will be taken against X, responsible officials and users violating the platform and law under the IT Act, IT Rules and Indian Judicial Code and other laws.

Priyanka Chaturvedi had raised the matter

Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi wrote a letter to Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav on Friday. In this he had demanded government intervention in the matter of misuse of X’s Grok AI. The Shiv Sena MP had told that with the help of Grok, obscene pictures of women were being made and posted on social media.