Indonesia has temporarily blocked access to Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot, citing concerns over the risk of AI-generated pornographic content. The move makes Indonesia the first country to deny access to the tool.
The decision follows growing criticism from governments, regulators and researchers across Europe and Asia over the spread of sexualised content on the app. Several countries have opened inquiries into Grok’s safeguards.
xAI, the company behind Grok, said on Thursday that it had restricted image generation and editing to paying subscribers while addressing lapses that allowed sexualised outputs. These included images of scantily clad children, which sparked widespread condemnation.
Indonesia’s communications and digital minister, Meutya Hafid, said the government viewed the creation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights and personal dignity.
“The government sees this practice as a threat to the safety of citizens in the digital space,” she said in a statement. The ministry has also summoned officials from X, the social media platform owned by Musk, for discussions.
Musk said on X that anyone using Grok to create illegal content would face the same consequences as if they had uploaded such material themselves.
When contacted for comment by Reuters, xAI responded with what appeared to be an automated message stating: “Legacy Media Lies.” X did not immediately respond to a separate request for comment.
Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, enforces strict laws banning the online distribution of content deemed obscene.
The block comes after Grok disabled its image creation feature for most users on Friday, following public outrage over its use to generate sexually explicit and violent imagery.
Musk has also faced the threat of fines, regulatory action and reports of a possible ban on X in the UK over similar concerns.
The chatbot has been used to manipulate images of women, including removing clothing and placing them in sexualised poses. This function has now been restricted to paying subscribers.
Australia has also raised alarms. Prime minister Anthony Albanese said the use of artificial intelligence to create exploitative sexual content was “abhorrent”.
Speaking to reporters in Canberra, Albanese said the case highlighted a failure by social media platforms to act responsibly, adding that Australians and global users deserved better standards of protection.
The Australian eSafety Office said it had seen a recent increase in reports linked to Grok, despite overall numbers remaining small.
On Friday, the watchdog warned it would use its enforcement powers, including issuing removal notices, where content breached thresholds set under the Online Safety Act.
It added that X, Grok and other platforms were subject to obligations requiring them to detect and remove child sexual exploitation material and other unlawful content under Australia’s industry codes and standards.
