New Delhi, January 2, 2026: The central government on Friday issued a stern notice to Elon Musk-owned social media platform X, directing it to immediately remove all vulgar, obscene and unlawful content, particularly material generated through its artificial intelligence tool Grok. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) warned that failure to comply could invite strict legal action under existing laws.
In an official order dated January 2, MeitY said it has served a notice on X’s Chief Compliance Officer for India for alleged non-compliance with statutory due diligence obligations under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Information Technology Rules, 2021. The ministry instructed the platform to remove or disable access to all content found to be in violation of Indian laws without delay and within the timelines prescribed under the IT Rules.
The order also directed X to initiate action against accounts and users responsible for generating or circulating such content and to submit a detailed action taken report within 72 hours. The government said it has repeatedly received complaints, including from parliamentary stakeholders and through public discourse, regarding content on X that allegedly violates legal standards of decency and obscenity.
According to the ministry, Grok AI, developed by X, has been misused to create and share obscene and derogatory images and videos of women. The order noted that such misuse includes the creation of fake accounts as well as the manipulation of real images through AI-generated prompts and synthetic outputs. MeitY described this as a serious failure of platform-level safeguards and enforcement mechanisms.
The issue gained further attention earlier in the day after Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi wrote to Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, seeking urgent intervention over instances of Grok being used to generate vulgar images of women and circulate them online.
The ministry has also asked X to conduct a comprehensive technical and governance-level review of Grok, including its prompt-processing systems, image handling, output generation and safety guardrails. The objective, the order said, is to ensure that the AI tool does not facilitate or promote sexually explicit, indecent or otherwise unlawful content in any form.
MeitY cautioned that non-compliance with the directions would be viewed seriously and could lead to action against the platform, its responsible officers and users under the IT Act, IT Rules, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and other applicable laws, without further notice.
The notice follows a broader advisory issued by the ministry on December 29, urging social media platforms to strengthen compliance and act promptly against obscene and unlawful content, amid concerns that existing measures were not being enforced effectively.
