Centre Mulls Revoking X’s Safe Harbour Over Grok Misuse

MeitY mulling to revoke X's safe harbour status

SUMMARY

The authorities directed X to address the misuse of Grok for generating and disseminating sexually explicit images and videos — particularly those targeting women — within a 72-hour compliance window

If safe harbour is withdrawn, X would face substantial increases in compliance costs, requiring more India-based content moderation and legal resources

The development comes on the back of MeitY recently proposing amendments to the IT Rules, 2021, to mandate all online platforms to label all deepfakes and AI-generated content as “synthetically generated information"

Amid allegations of X-owned GenAI chatbot Grok generating obscene images based on users’ prompts, the Indian government has reportedly issued a warning to the social media giant to revoke its “safe harbour” status if it doesn’t comply with latest takedown directions.

As per an ET report, citing sources, the authorities directed X to address the misuse of Grok for generating and disseminating sexually explicit images and videos — particularly those targeting women — within a 72-hour compliance window. If X fails to comply with required actions, the government will consider revoking its safe harbour status.

For context, safe harbour is a legal provision to sidestep or eliminate legal or regulatory liability in certain situations, provided that certain conditions are met..

If safe harbour is withdrawn, X would face substantial increases in compliance costs, requiring more India-based content moderation and legal resources. The company could become liable for criminal or civil penalties and face service blocking, arising from user posts.

On Friday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) sent a formal notice to X Corp, citing the generation and circulation of obscene and sexually explicit content online by Grok.

MeitY’s Cyber Laws Division wrote to X’s Chief Compliance Officer in India, alleging that the platform has failed to comply with its statutory due diligence requirements under the IT Act, 2000, and the IT Rules, 2021.

It must be mentioned that this particular misuse issue for Grok has also raised regulatory concerns in other countries like France and Malaysia as well. The issue arose when it came to notice that Grok could be coaxed into generating sexualised images of real women and, in some instances, images that appeared to depict minors, shared on the platform. Such content is being generated through prompts, image manipulation and synthetic outputs, pointing to gaps in platform-level safeguards and enforcement mechanisms, as per MeitY.

X chief Elon Musk also addressed the issue recently. “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content,” he said in a post on X.

Simultaneously, X’s safety page wrote about strict actions to be taken against illegal content on the platform. “We take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary,” the post added.

If this reform comes into play, platforms enabling the creation or modification of this type of content, including X, YouTube, Instagram, etc., would be required to ensure that such information is prominently labeled or embedded with a permanent unique metadata or identifier. In return, these platforms would be legally protected if they remove or limit access to such AI-generated content.