Malaysia Lifts Suspension On Musk’s Grok Chatbot

Malaysia said Friday it had restored access to Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot on Friday after the AI tool was blocked nearly two weeks ago over concerns about AI-generated sexualised deepfakes.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) suspended the service on X and xAI on January 11 and appointed solicitors to commence “legal proceedings”, without specifying what that would entail.

But it said in a statement on Friday: “The temporary access restriction on the use of the Grok application on the X platform has been lifted effective today.”

This followed “confirmation of the implementation of additional preventive and security measures by the platform”, the state media watchdog said.

It did not specifically state what measures had been taken.

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Malaysian officials and X representatives met Wednesday for clarification and commitments on X’s preventive measures and its compliance with Malaysian law, the MCMC said.

It said X confirmed the required security measures had been implemented, adding that its compliance was being monitored by authorities.

Malaysia last week threatened legal action against X and xAI if the platforms failed to take action.

Grok generated an estimated three million sexualised images of women and children in a matter of days, researchers said on Thursday, revealing the scale of the explicit content that sparked a global outcry.

Last week, following the global outrage, X announced that it would “geoblock the ability” of all Grok and X users to create images of people in “bikinis, underwear, and similar attire” in jurisdictions where such actions are illegal.

AFP