By Charles Maduka
Malaysia has suspended access to Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, following concerns over the generation of pornographic and sexually explicit content.
The decision was announced by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, which said the move followed widespread criticism after it was discovered that Grok’s image generation feature could be used to sexualise images of women and children through simple text prompts.
The suspension came shortly after Indonesia blocked access to the AI tool entirely, becoming the first country to take such action. In several other regions, access to Grok has been limited to paying subscribers.
In a statement, the Malaysian regulator said it had ordered a temporary restriction on Grok with immediate effect, citing repeated misuse of the tool to produce obscene, indecent, and grossly offensive images, including non-consensual manipulated content.
According to the commission, the problematic content involved women and minors, despite earlier regulatory engagement and formal notices issued to X Corp and xAI, the company behind Grok.
Checks carried out by journalists in Kuala Lumpur showed that the chatbot was no longer responding to user prompts following the restriction.
The regulator noted that the safeguards put in place by the platform were inadequate, stressing that access would only be restored after proper corrective measures had been implemented and verified.
It also faulted X Corp for failing to address the risks associated with the design and operation of the AI tool, adding that the company relied mainly on user reports rather than proactive controls.
Grok is integrated into the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The controversy has drawn criticism from European officials and technology campaigners, who argued that restricting the image creation feature to paying users did not solve concerns around the creation of sexualised deepfake images.
In response to the backlash, Grok announced a new monetisation policy, stating that image generation and editing would be available only to premium subscribers, a move critics say does little to address the core safety issues.
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