Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot was prohibited almost two weeks ago due to worries over AI-generated sexualized deepfakes, but Malaysia said on Friday that access has been restored.
On January 11, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) halted the service on X and xAI and designated attorneys to start “legal proceedings,” albeit they did not clarify what that meant.
However, it stated in a statement on Friday that “the temporary access restriction on the use of the Grok application on the X platform has been lifted effective today.”
According to the official media watchdog, this came after “confirmation of the implementation of additional preventive and security measures by the platform.”
What steps had been taken was not made clear.
According to the MCMC, representatives of X and Malaysian officials met on Wednesday to discuss X’s preventive measures and its adherence to Malaysian law.
It stated that X attested to the implementation of the necessary security measures and that authorities were keeping an eye on its compliance.
Last week, if X and xAI did nothing, Malaysia threatened to sue them.
According to experts on Thursday, Grok produced an estimated three million sexualized photographs of women and children in a matter of days, demonstrating the extent of the explicit content that caused a worldwide uproar.
In response to the worldwide outcry, X declared last week that it will “geoblock the ability” of all Grok and X users to take pictures of persons wearing “bikinis, underwear, and similar attire” in countries where doing so is prohibited.
