Govt sends notice to X, seeks action on morphed pictures

New Delhi: In a strong step towards ensuring the prevention of the misuse of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the ministry of electronics and IT has sent a letter to X (formerly Twitter) regarding failure in moderating AI-generated content on the social media platform.

What are the concerns raised?

Highlighting concerns that the Grok and other services of AI have been exploited to generate and distribute obscene or non-consensual images, particularly targeting the dignity and privacy of women, the government has also sought a report on the actions taken by the Elon Musk owned platform, and has called for the immediate removal of illegal materials.

The ministry has also called upon the social media giant to enforce the required AI guardrails, and submit a detailed Action Taken Report within 72 hours, failing which the platform will risk losing its statutory immunity from legal liability. 

“Failure to observe statutory due diligence obligations under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and seeking an Action Taken Report towards immediate compliance for prevention of hosting, generation, publication, transmission, sharing or uploading of obscene, nude, indecent and sexually explicit content through the misuse of Al-based services like 'Grok' and other services,” the ministry’s letter to X read.

“It has been reported and represented from time to time, including through public discourse and representations from various parliamentary stakeholders that certain categories of content circulating on your platform may not be in compliance with applicable laws relating to decency and obscenity. It has especially been observed that the service namely "Grok Al" developed by you and integrated and made available on the X platform, is being misused by users to create fake accounts to host, generate, publish or share obscene images or videos of women in a derogatory or vulgar manner in order to indecently denigrate them. Importantly, this is not limited to creation of fake accounts but also targets women who host or publish their images or videos, through prompts, image manipulation and synthetic outputs,” the letter added. 

“Such conduct reflects a serious failure of platform-level safeguards and enforcement mechanisms, and amounts to gross misuse of artificial intelligence technologies in violation of applicable laws. In this context, and without prejudice to action taken or being taken by authorised agencies under applicable laws, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ("Ministry"/ "MeitY") is of the view that the regulatory provisions under the Information Technology Act, 2000("IT Act") and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 ("IT Rules, 2021) are not being adequately adhered to by your platform, particularly in relation to obscene, indecent, vulgar, pomographic, paedophilic, or otherwise unlawful or harmful content which are potentially violative of extant laws. The aforesaid acts and omissions are viewed with grave concern, as they have the effect of violating the dignity, privacy and safety of women and children, normalising sexual harassment and exploitation in digital spaces, and undermining the statutory due diligence framework applicable to intermediaries operating in India.” 

What does the ministry want X to do?

The government has indicated that the platform will have to take concrete on this issue and must send a report within the stipulated legal timeframe.

“It is reiterated that non-compliance with the above requirements shall be viewed seriously and may result in strict legal consequences against your platform, its responsible officers and the users on the platform who violate the law, without any further notice, under the IT Act, the IT Rules, the BNSS, the BNS and other applicable laws,” the letter said.