Malaysia and Indonesia have become the first countries to block Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok over concerns about explicit images it can generate.
Authorities in both nations took action over the weekend, citing worries about nonconsensual sexual deepfakes.
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Following worldwide criticism over sexualized deepfakes of people — including women and minors — Grok last week restricted its image creation and editing tools to paying subscribers. Opponents, however, argue the measure fell short of solving the issue.
"The government sees nonconsensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity and the safety of citizens in the digital space,” Indonesian Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press.
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Meanwhile, the United Kingdom on Monday threatened to take legal action against anyone who shares or threatens to share "a deepfake intimate image without consent – including images of people in their underwear."
"Under the Online Safety Act, sharing images – or threatening to share them – is a criminal offence. For individuals, and for platforms," Liz Kendall, U.K secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, said in a statement.
"The Data Act, passed last year, made it a criminal offence to create – or request the creation of – non-consensual intimate images," Kendall added. "And today, I can announce to the House that this offence will be brought into force this week and that I will make it a priority offence in the Online Safety Act too."
Grok is part of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk owns. The chatbot’s multimodal capabilities allow it to create and manipulate images in addition to generating text. It remains available in other countries but faces mounting scrutiny from regulators worldwide over content safety.
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