India has directed Elon Musk’s social media platform X to urgently address concerns over its AI chatbot Grok after users and lawmakers raised alarms about the generation of obscene and sexually explicit content. The Indian IT ministry issued a formal order demanding immediate technical and procedural fixes to prevent Grok from producing material involving nudity, sexualization, or other unlawful content. The directive requires X to implement measures restricting the creation of content that is sexually explicit, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, or otherwise prohibited under Indian law. The platform has been given 72 hours to submit a detailed report outlining the actions taken to prevent such content from being hosted or disseminated on its service. Failure to comply could jeopardize X’s “safe harbor” protections under India’s IT Act, which currently shield platforms from liability for user-generated content — a key legal safeguard. Without this protection, X could face legal consequences for content posted on its platform. The order follows multiple reports of Grok being prompted to generate altered images of women, including ones depicting them in bikinis, using AI manipulation. Indian parliamentarian Priyanka Chaturvedi filed a formal complaint over these incidents, highlighting the potential for misuse of AI tools to create non-consensual, harmful content. In a separate incident, X acknowledged that Grok had generated images involving minors due to gaps in its safety safeguards, and those were later removed. Despite these takedowns, at the time of publication, some AI-generated images of women altered to appear in bikinis remained accessible on X, according to a TechCrunch review. The order comes just days after the Indian IT ministry released a broader advisory to all social media platforms, reiterating that compliance with local laws on obscene and sexually explicit content is essential to maintain legal immunity. The advisory urged companies to strengthen internal content moderation systems and warned that non-compliance could lead to legal action under both India’s IT Act and criminal laws. “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,” the advisory stated. India, one of the world’s largest digital markets, is becoming a key battleground for how governments regulate AI-generated content. The government’s stance may set a precedent for other countries seeking to hold global tech companies accountable for the outputs of their AI systems. Meanwhile, X continues to challenge aspects of India’s content regulation framework in court, arguing that the government’s takedown powers risk overreach. However, the platform has complied with most blocking orders issued by Indian authorities. The growing use of Grok for real-time news commentary and fact-checking has increased its visibility and political sensitivity, amplifying scrutiny over its outputs. As of now, X and its AI division xAI have not responded to requests for comment on the latest government order.