After facing strong criticism from governments and civil society groups worldwide, Elon Musk-owned X has disabled Grok’s controversial image generation features.
The AI chatbot will no longer be able to create or edit objectionable images of women, even for premium users.
X’s safety team confirmed that Grok has been updated to block the editing of images of real people into revealing clothing, such as bikinis. This restriction now applies to all users, including paid subscribers. The move follows widespread backlash over Grok’s earlier “Spicy Mode,” which allowed users to create sexualised deepfake images of women and even children using simple text commands.
Several countries raised serious concerns, with some blocking Grok entirely and others launching investigations. In India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology asked xAI to submit an action-taken report. In the United States, California’s Attorney General also opened an investigation into the AI developer. At the same time, 28 civil society organisations urged Apple and Google to remove Grok and X from their app stores due to the rise in sexualised AI-generated images.
X has now tightened access further by limiting image generation and editing features strictly to paid users, stating that this helps improve accountability and prevent misuse. The platform said it will actively remove high-priority violations, including child sexual abuse material and non-consensual explicit content, and take strict action against accounts that break the rules.
The Indian government had earlier directed X to immediately remove illegal content and enforce stronger safeguards, including suspending or terminating accounts involved in generating explicit images. According to reports, X has already removed nearly 3,500 obscene images generated through Grok in India and blocked around 600 users who abused the chatbot.
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