Grok deepfake controversy: Elon Musk's chatbot gets new lease on life as Indonesia lifts ban under ‘strict supervision’

Indonesia has lifted the ban on Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot, just weeks after the country announced that it was restricting access to the AI tool after generating sexualized deepfake images of women and children. The Indonesian government in a statement on Sunday said that it was processing the normalization of Grok services in the country ‘conditionally and under strict supervision’

The reversal of ban came after X had submitted a written commitment to the Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Digital regarding the sevice improvement and compliance with the applicable legal provisions in the country.

In an official statement, senior ⁠ministry official Alexander Sabar said, "The normalisation of access to Grok services is being carried out conditionally after X Corp ⁠submitted a written commitment containing ​concrete steps for service improvement and ​prevention of abuse. This commitment is the basis for evaluation, not the end of the ‍supervision process,"

He also noted taht all measures taken by X will be ‘verified and tested continuously’ by the Ministry of Commnication to ‘ensure their effectiveness in preventing violations’.

The ministry noted that X had implemented a number of ‘layered’ measures in order to address the misuse of Grok services. These measures include strengthening technical protection, restricting access to certain features, sharpening policies and internal rule enforcement, and activating incident response protocols, the ministry said.