Social media platform X has taken down 3,500 posts and removed 600 accounts following the Centre’s intervention over objectionable content on the site, government sources confirmed. According to the sources, X has provided assurances to authorities that it will not permit obscene material on its platform and will comply with government guidelines.
The development follows action taken a week ago when the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology raised concerns about indecent content on X, previously known as Twitter. The ministry had directed X Corp, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, to submit an action taken report within 72 hours “towards immediate compliance for prevention of hosting, generation, publication or transmission, sharing or uploading of obscene, nude, indecent and explicit content through the misuse of AI-based services like ‘Grok’ and xAI’s other services.”
The Centre’s notice cautioned that failure to comply would be “viewed seriously and may result in strict legal consequences” against the platform and responsible officers under Indian legislation.
The ministry’s communication stated that it has come to light that users are exploiting Grok to establish accounts for hosting, generating, publishing, or distributing obscene images or videos of women in a degrading or vulgar fashion to indecently demean them.
The ministry directed X to undertake a thorough examination of Grok’s technical and governance structures to prevent the creation of such material. The notice specified that Grok, X’s AI assistant, must implement stringent user policies, including suspension and termination of offenders.
The ministry warned that non-compliance by X could lead to forfeiture of safe harbour protections under Section 79 of the IT Act and initiate penal proceedings under several laws, including the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Indecent Representation of Women Act, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
The communication clarified that the issue extends beyond the establishment of fraudulent accounts and also encompasses women who host or publish their images or videos through prompts, image manipulation, and synthetic outputs. “Such conduct reflects a serious failure of platform-level safeguards and enforcement mechanisms, and amounts to gross misuse of artificial intelligence technologies in violation of applicable laws,” the letter noted.