Indonesian minister says deepfakes are ‘serious violations of human rights, dignity and security of citizens’ online.
Published on January 10, 2026
Indonesia has become the first country in the world to block Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot over the risk of fake, AI-generated pornographic content.
The country’s communications and digital affairs minister said on Saturday that the “practice of non-consensual sexual deepfakes” is a “serious violation of human rights, dignity and security of citizens in the digital space”.
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“To protect women, children and the public from the risk of fake pornographic content created using artificial intelligence technology, the government … has temporarily blocked access to the Grok application,” Meutya Hafid said in a statement.
The move comes a day later Grok limited image generation and paying customers to edit features on Musk’s social media platform X as it seeks to mitigate criticism of DeepFex.
Musk has been threatened with fines, as have many countries Push back publicly against Grok, which allowed users to alter images online to remove subjects’ clothes.
The billionaire said anyone using Grok to create illegal content would face the same consequences as uploading such content directly.
But European officials and tech campaigners criticized this week’s decision to limit the AI tool’s features to paying customers on X, saying it failed to address their concerns.
British Prime Minister Keir Starr’s office called the measure “insulting” and “no solution” to victims.
“It only makes an AI feature that allows illegal images to be created into the premium service,” a Downing Street spokesman said on Friday. “It is insulting to victims of abuse and sexual violence.”
Indonesia’s Ministry of Culture and Digital Affairs said on Saturday that it had summoned X officials to discuss the matter.
In the country of 285 million people, there are strict rules banning the online sharing of content deemed obscene.