New Delhi: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued a formal notice to Elon Musk-owned social media platform X, formerly Twitter, citing alleged failures to comply with statutory due diligence obligations under Indian law in relation to the misuse of its AI-powered system, Grok.
In a letter dated 2 January, addressed to X Corp’s Chief Compliance Officer for India operations, MeitY stated that it has received repeated reports, including representations from parliamentary stakeholders, regarding the circulation of content on the platform that may violate laws related to decency and obscenity.
The ministry specifically pointed to the misuse of the Grok AI service, integrated into X, for generating and sharing obscene images and videos of women through fake accounts, image manipulation, prompts and synthetic outputs.
MeitY stated that such conduct reflects “a serious failure of platform-level safeguards and enforcement mechanisms” and amounts to the gross misuse of artificial intelligence technologies in violation of applicable laws
The ministry further noted that the alleged violations undermine the dignity, privacy, and safety of women and children, while normalising sexual harassment and exploitation in digital spaces
The letter reminded X that compliance with the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, is mandatory and that the safe harbour protections under Section 79 of the IT Act are conditional upon strict observance of due diligence requirements.
MeitY directed X to immediately review the technical and governance safeguards of the Grok AI application, enforce its terms of service against violating users, remove unlawful content within prescribed timelines and submit a detailed Action Taken Report (ATR) within 72 hours of issuance of the letter
The ministry warned that failure to comply may result in the loss of liability exemptions under Section 79 of the IT Act and could invite further legal action under multiple statutes, including the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the IT Act.
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