Malaysia Temporarily Blocks Elon Musk's Grok After Sexualised AI Images Spark Outrage

Malaysia's communications regulator has temporarily suspended access to Grok, the AI chatbot developed by xAI and integrated into Elon Musk's social media platform X, after reports the tool was used to generate pornographic and sexualised images of women and children.

What Happened

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said the restriction took effect immediately following repeated misuse of Grok's image-generation capabilities. An AFP reporter in Kuala Lumpur found that Grok did not respond to prompts after the restriction was put in place.

Regulator's Rationale

'This action follows repeated misuse of Grok to generate obscene, sexually explicit, indecent, grossly offensive and non-consensual manipulated images,' the regulator said, noting that the content involved women and minors and persisted despite prior notices to X Corp. and xAI.

The MCMC said it judged the platform's safeguards to be inadequate and that access will be restored only after required safety changes are implemented and verified. Officials criticized X Corp. for relying mainly on user-initiated reporting rather than stronger design-level protections.

Global Context And Response

Indonesia moved earlier to block Grok entirely, and European officials and tech-policy groups also condemned the tool after its image-creation feature was placed behind a paywall. Critics argued that limiting image generation to paying subscribers did not address the underlying risks of sexualised deepfakes.

Grok's Policy Change

In response to the backlash, Grok's operators posted a monetisation update on X saying image generation and editing are now limited to paying subscribers. The move drew further criticism from regulators and campaigners who say access controls alone do not prevent misuse.

Next Steps

The MCMC said it will only lift the temporary restriction once X Corp. and xAI demonstrate and verify effective safeguards against non-consensual and sexualised imagery, particularly involving minors. The incident highlights ongoing tensions between rapid AI feature deployment and the need for robust safety and content-moderation measures.