Govt directs Elon Musk-led X to remove vulgar, unlawful content

The government on Friday issued a stern notice to Elon Musk-led social media platform X to immediately remove all vulgar and unlawful content, especially generated by its AI app Grok or face action under the law.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT has issued a notice to the Chief Compliance Officer for India operations of X for failure to observe statutory due diligence obligations under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

"...X is hereby directed 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," the order dated January 2 said.

The ministry has sought an action taken report towards immediate compliance for the prevention of hosting, generation, publication, transmission, sharing or uploading of obscene, nude, indecent and sexually explicit content through the misuse of AI-based services like 'Grok'.

"It is reiterated that non-compliance with the...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," the order said.

It may be noted that Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi had written to the government earlier regarding X's Grok generating problematic content on women. 

In a post on X, she said, “I would take this opportunity to thank Hon IT Minister for promptly taking note of my letter and for issuing a letter to X platform in the regard of AI led grok generating problematic content of women based on prompts that disrespect woman’s dignity and violates their consent, further silencing them on these platforms.”