The Philippines bans Grok, following Indonesia and Malaysia

The global backlash against artificial intelligence (AI) ‘deepfakes’ grows as the Philippines joins its Southeast Asian peers Malaysia and Indonesia in restricting access to X’s AI chatbot Grok, due to concerns that the tool is being used to create non-consensual sexualized images of women and minors.

The move comes a week after Elon Musk’s platform was forced to restrict access to Grok’s image creation function in the United Kingdom over similar concerns.

The Philippines is the latest to ban

On January 16, the Philippines became the latest country to restrict access to X’s AI chatbot Grok due to concerns around the creation of non-consensual sexualized deepfakes of women and children.

The Philippines Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) ordered the takedown of Grok under the country’s Cybercrime Prevention Act 2012, that prohibits the creation and dissemination of ‘Cybersex’ and ‘Child Pornography’ content; the former being defined as “the willful engagement, maintenance, control, or operation, directly or indirectly, of any lascivious exhibition of sexual organs or sexual activity, with the aid of a computer system,” while the latter is the representation, “whether visual, audio, or written combination thereof,” of a person under the age of 18 “engaged or involved in real or simulated explicit sexual activities.”

In a statement, reported by local outlet Philippine News Agency last Friday, DICT Secretary Henry Aguda and Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) Chief Undersecretary Aboy Paraiso requested that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) block and take down access to Grok within 24 hours.

“We moved fast as ordered by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. The President told us that if there is harm to the public, we need to act fast,” Aguda said.

He reportedly added that Grok will not be reactivated until it can comply with the Philippines’ internet fair use policy.

Meanwhile, Paraiso highlighted the danger Grok’s image function presents to children, saying that “because it’s available to everyone, even our minors can access it. It allows the creation of content that allows pornography.”

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot has increasingly found itself the subject of unwanted headlines around the world in the past few weeks due to its advanced image-generation capabilities, which allow users to generate new images or edit existing ones with prompts.

Unfortunately for X, it has been abused to edit images of real people—often celebrities—and children, to show them in revealing outfits.

Malaysia and Indonesia act fast

The Philippines’ crackdown on Grok follows in the footsteps of the country’s Southeast Asian neighbors, Indonesia and Malaysia, who both recently moved to block the chatbot—on January 11 and 12, respectively—over its explicit deepfakes.

“The government views the practice of non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and the security of citizens in the digital space,” Indonesia’s Communications and Digital Minister Meutya Hafid said in a statement, after the ban was announced.

This sentiment was echoed the following day by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), which said it had issued notices to X earlier in the year to seek tighter measures after it found “repeated misuse” of Grok to generate harmful content, but that the platform had failed to address the risks.

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UK demands action

It is not just Southeast Asia that has moved to curtail the misuse of X’s chatbot.

On January 9, the platform was forced to switch off its image creation function for the vast majority of U.K. users, after the country’s communications watchdog, Ofcom, made “urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the U.K.”

Earlier in January, when reports emerged that Grok was being used to create and disseminate explicit images of children and women with their clothes digitally removed, U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer promised to “take action” on the “disgraceful and disgusting” reports.

“This is wrong, it’s unlawful, we are not going to tolerate it,” said Starmer, adding that “I have asked for all options to be on the table.”

In response to the scandal, X announced that its image generation and editing services would be “limited to paying subscribers” in the U.K.

However, this action was deemed by some observers to be a weak and insulting half-measure.

“[Today’s move] simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service,” said the PM’s spokesperson on January 9. “It’s not a solution. In fact, it’s insulting to victims of misogyny and sexual violence.”

The spokesperson reiterated that “all options” were on the table for the government as potential solutions to the problem, whilst giving Ofcom the government’s “full support to take any action it sees fit”—meaning, a full ban along the lines of the Southeast Asian trio could be on the cards in the U.K. as well.

For its part, Musk’s X has yet to fully respond to the scandal and resulting Southeast Asian bans, nor has it indicated if it will go further with Grok’s U.K. restrictions.

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