The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued a notice to X over its alleged failure to comply with statutory obligations under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and related legal provisions.

The ministry flagged concerns about the misuse of AI-powered services, including Grok, for generating and sharing obscene, nude, indecent, sexually explicit, or otherwise unlawful content. X has been instructed to submit a detailed Action Taken Report (ATR) within 72 hours.

Alleged Misuse of AI to Target Women

In its letter to the Chief Compliance Officer of X Corp India, MeitY cited reports and parliamentary representations alleging that AI services on the platform were being misused to create fake accounts and generate morphed images and videos of women.

The notice stated that the misuse includes manipulating images and videos uploaded by women themselves, often sexualising them through AI prompts and synthetic outputs. MeitY warned that such activity violates privacy and safety norms, normalises online harassment, and points to serious gaps in platform-level safeguards.

Compliance Measures and Legal Warning

The ministry cautioned that non-compliance could result in X losing its intermediary liability protection under Section 79 of the IT Act, exposing the platform to legal action under the IT Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) rules.

MeitY has directed X to:

• Conduct a comprehensive technical, procedural, and governance review of Grok

• Examine prompt processing, image handling, content generation, and safety guardrails

• Strictly enforce its terms of service and AI usage policies

• Suspend or terminate accounts found violating guidelines

• Remove or disable all unlawful content immediately while preserving evidence

The action follows concerns raised by Priyanka Chaturvedi, who highlighted the growing misuse of AI to sexualise women’s photos and urged urgent government intervention.