{"id":17799,"date":"2026-02-01T17:27:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T17:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=17799"},"modified":"2026-02-01T17:27:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T17:27:41","slug":"indonesia-conditionally-lifts-ban-on-grok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=17799","title":{"rendered":"Indonesia \u2018conditionally\u2019 lifts ban on Grok"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Indonesia has followed Malaysia and the Philippines in lifting a ban on xAI\u2019s chatbot Grok.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Southeast Asian countries banned Grok after it was used to create a flood of nonconsensual, sexualized imagery on X (now a subsidiary of xAI), including images of real women and minors. In late December and January, <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/22\/technology\/grok-x-ai-elon-musk-deepfakes.html\">Grok was used to create at least 1.8 million sexualized images of women<\/a>, according to separate analyses by The New York Times and the Center for Countering Digital Hate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.komdigi.go.id\/berita\/siaran-pers\/detail\/kemkomdigi-awasi-ketat-normalisasi-grok-usai-x-sampaikan-komitmen-kepatuhan\">a statement<\/a>, Indonesia\u2019s Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs said that it was lifting the ban after X sent a letter \u201coutlining concrete steps for service improvements and the prevention of misuse\u201d (translation <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/01\/world\/asia\/indonesia-lift-grok-ban.html\">via The New York Times<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alexander Sabar, the ministry\u2019s director general of digital space monitoring, said the ban is only being lifted \u201cconditionally\u201d and could be reinstated if \u201cfurther violations are discovered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Malaysia and the Philippines lifted their bans on January 23.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Grok\u2019s deepfakes have spurred criticism and investigations \u2014 but only a few outright bans \u2014 from governments around the world. In the United States, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office was<a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/01\/16\/california-ag-sends-musks-xai-a-cease-and-desist-order-over-sexual-deepfakes\/\"> investigating xAI and had sent a cease-and-desist letter<\/a> ordering the company to take immediate action to end the production of these images.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">xAI appears to have taken some steps to restrict Grok\u2019s capabilities, including <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/01\/09\/x-restricts-groks-image-generation-to-paying-subscribers-only-after-drawing-the-worlds-ire\/\">limiting its AI image generation feature to paying subscribers on X<\/a>. CEO <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/01\/world\/asia\/indonesia-lift-grok-ban.html\">Elon Musk has insisted<\/a>, \u201cAnyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content\u201d and said he is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/01\/14\/musk-denies-awareness-of-grok-sexual-underage-images-as-california-ag-launches-probe\/\">not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">Boston, MA<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">June 23, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Documents released by the Justice Department on Friday around the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein include <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/elon-musk\/expressed-interest-visiting-jeffrey-epstein-island-emails-show-doj-rcna256784\">at least 16 emails between Musk and Epstein<\/a> in 2012 and 2013, with Musk asking to visit Epstein\u2019s Caribbean island and wondering about the \u201cwildest party on your island.\u201d Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring an underage girl for prostitution in 2008.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">xAI, meanwhile, is <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/01\/29\/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-xai-merger-talks-ipo-reuters\/\">reportedly in talks to merge with two of Musk\u2019s other companies<\/a>, SpaceX and Tesla, ahead of a SpaceX IPO.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/02\/01\/indonesia-conditionally-lifts-ban-on-grok\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indonesia has followed Malaysi&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[249],"tags":[554,3598,3070,780],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}