Malaysia and Indonesia become the first countries to block Musk's Grok over sexualized AI images
Source: Associated Press
Malaysia and Indonesia become the first countries to block Musk’s Grok over sexualized AI images
By EILEEN NG and EDNA TARIGAN
Updated 9:02 AM EST, January 12, 2026
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia and Indonesia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI, as concerns grew among global authorities that it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images.
The moves reflect growing scrutiny of generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text and concern that existing safeguards are failing to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children.
Last week, Grok limited image generation and editing to paying users following a global backlash over sexualized deepfakes of people, but critics say it didn’t fully address the problem.
An emailed request for comment by The Associated Press to xAI resulted in an automated reply from the media support email address which stated, “Legacy Media Lies.” This was the same message received from a different email when asked for comment regarding the global backlash.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/grok-malaysia-indonesia-block-c7cb320327f259c4da35908e1269c225