IT ministry orders X to ‘audit’ and stop changing photos of women in Grok chatbot

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Friday, January 2, 2026, ordered social media platform Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi had raised alarm over the issue in a letter to IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw earlier in the day.

X, formerly Twitter, had no immediate comment on the matter. Grok operates as a separate artificial intelligence company under X’s holding company, but maintains an account on the social media platform and automatically communicates with users. Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of

In a four-page letter to X’s Chief Compliance Officer for India, the IT ministry wrote that this “has been observed [Grok] is 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 to indecently denigrate them.” The letter stated that “compliance with the IT Act and the IT Rules, 2021 is not optional and the statutory exemptions under Section 79 of the IT Act are subject to strict compliance with due diligence obligations.”

Pointing out that even outside the IT Act, these types of actions “may independently lead to criminal prosecution” and said

The company must send an Action Taken Report in response to these directions by Monday (January 5, 2026), the letter said. “It is reiterated that non-compliance with the above requirements should be taken seriously and may lead to strict legal consequences against your platform, its responsible officials and the users on the platform who violate the law, without any further notice, under the IT Act, IT Rules, BNSS, BNS and other applicable laws.”

Earlier in the day, Mr Vaishnaw said social media companies must “take responsibility” for the content on their platforms. Mr Vaishnaw also pointed out that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT had recommended a strict law on obscene content on social media. The IT ministry had earlier this week sent an advisory to all social media platforms directing them to proactively remove ‘obscene’ and ‘pornographic’ content.