Indonesia has become the first country to block Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot, citing concerns over the creation and spread of fake, AI-generated pornographic content.
Indonesia’s Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs said on Saturday that the production of non-consensual sexual deepfakes constitutes a serious violation of human rights, personal dignity, and public safety in the digital space.
“To protect women, children, and the wider public from the dangers you of fake pornographic content produced using artificial intelligence, the government has temporarily blocked access to the Grok application,” Minister Meutya Hafid said in a statement.
The decision came a day after Grok restricted its image generation and editing features on Musk’s social media platform X to paying subscribers, amid growing criticism over the misuse of the tool to create deepfake images.
Musk has faced the threat of fines as several countries publicly push back against Grok, which previously allowed users to manipulate online images to digitally remove clothing from subjects.
The billionaire has said that anyone who uses Grok to generate illegal content would face the same penalties as those who upload such material directly.
However, European officials and digital rights campaigners criticised the move to limit Grok’s features to paying users, arguing that it fails to address the underlying problem.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office described the measure as “insulting” to victims and said it did not offer a real solution.
“That simply turns an AI tool capable of creating unlawful images into a premium service,” a Downing Street spokesperson said on Friday.
“It is an insult to victims of misogyny and sexual violence.”
Indonesia’s culture and digital affairs ministry said it has summoned representatives of X for talks on the issue.
Indonesia, which has a population of about 285 million, enforces strict regulations banning the online distribution of content deemed obscene.
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