Indonesia has let Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok back online after a deepfake scandal involving women and minors, but under strict supervision that officials say could quickly turn into another ban.
Indonesia allowed Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok to resume operations in the country on a conditional basis and under strict supervision, weeks after banning it for explicit sexual content.
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Grok came under fire for generating sexually explicit deepfakes of women and minors early last month.
Indonesia and Malaysia were the first two countries that blocked access to the chatbot.
Malaysian authorities lifted the temporary restriction after the company took security and preventive measures. Malaysian regulators said they met last week with X’s representatives and would continue to monitor the situation.
Musk’s social platform X Corp made a written commitment to service improvements and compliance with applicable laws, Indonesia's communications ministry said in a statement Sunday.
The company told the ministry it had taken steps to address the misuse of Grok services, including restricting access to certain features, according to the statement.
The normalisation of Grok's operations in Indonesia was not unconditional, said Alexander Sabar, the ministry's director general of digital space supervision.
Sabar added that the steps X claims to have taken will be verified and tested by Indonesian authorities to ensure they prevent violations, including the distribution of illegal content and violations of child protection principles.
“If inconsistencies or further violations are found in its implementation, the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs will not hesitate to take corrective action, including suspending access to services again,” Sabar said.
Last week, the European Commission opened an investigation into the social media platform to look at whether or not the social media platform did enough to mitigate the risk of the images being created and disseminated.