Social media platform X has taken down 3,500 posts and removed 600 accounts after the Centre raised concerns over obscene content, government sources said. The platform has assured authorities it will adhere to Indian regulations and prevent such violations.
BY PC Bureau
January 11, 2026: Social media platform X has blocked around 3,500 posts and removed nearly 600 accounts after the Centre flagged the presence of obscene content on the platform, government sources said. The sources added that X has assured authorities it will not permit obscene material and will comply with all applicable government regulations.
The action follows a notice issued last week by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), which flagged the circulation of obscene content on X, formerly known as Twitter. The ministry had directed X Corp, led by billionaire Elon Musk, to submit an action-taken report within 72 hours, seeking immediate compliance to prevent the hosting, generation, publication, transmission, or sharing of obscene, nude, indecent, and explicit content through the misuse of AI-based services such as Grok and other xAI tools.
The Centre had warned that failure to comply would be viewed seriously and could invite strict legal consequences against the platform and its responsible officers under Indian law.
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In its communication, the ministry said it had observed instances of users misusing Grok to create accounts and generate or share obscene images and videos of women in a derogatory and vulgar manner, amounting to indecent denigration. MeitY asked X to undertake a comprehensive review of Grok’s technical architecture and governance framework to prevent the generation of such content.
The notice further stated that Grok, X’s AI assistant, must enforce stringent user policies, including the suspension and termination of accounts found violating the rules. The ministry cautioned that non-compliance could lead to the loss of safe harbour protections under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act and trigger penal action under multiple laws, including the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Indecent Representation of Women Act, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
The letter added that the concern is not limited to the creation of fake accounts but also extends to instances where women are targeted through prompts, image manipulation, and synthetic outputs, even when they host or publish their own images or videos. “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,” the ministry said.
