Indonesia has officially suspended public access to the artificial intelligence chatbot Grok, developed by Elon Musk’s xAI. The decision was announced on Saturday by Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid, citing serious risks posed by the tool’s ability to generate non-consensual pornographic imagery.
The action follows widespread international criticism of Grok after reports revealed its image-generation feature could be used to create sexualized depictions of women and children using basic text prompts. Indonesia is the first nation to implement a full public block of the service, which had previously been limited to paying subscribers in other regions following the backlash.
Minister Hafid stated that the temporary restriction aims to “protect women, children, and the public from the risks of fake pornographic content generated using artificial intelligence.” She emphasized that the government considers such deepfake practices “a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and citizen security in the digital space.”
In response to the incident, the ministry has also summoned representatives from the social media platform X, which is closely affiliated with xAI, to provide clarification. As of Saturday evening, however, the official Grok account on X remained active and continued to respond to user queries in Bahasa Indonesia.
Elon Musk addressed the controversy last week, stating that anyone using Grok to produce illegal content would face legal consequences. Nevertheless, European officials and digital rights advocates have criticized the platform’s initial response—restricting access to paying users—as insufficient to prevent the creation of harmful deepfake material.
