KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has received 17 complaints regarding the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok on X, says Datuk Fahmi Fadzil.
The Communications Minister said the amount consists of six official complaints to the MCMC, two police reports by complainants to MCMC, eight complaints through social media tagging, and one First Information Report (FIR) by the MCMC.
Following the complaints, Fahmi said he chaired a meeting with representatives from X, which was attended by senior officials from the Communications Ministry and MCMC.
“The purpose of that meeting is to get explanation and commitment from representatives of X regarding preventative measures, the upgrading of safety features for users and steps taken to abide by the Malaysian law, as well as steps taken to prevent harmful online content.
“After that meeting, representatives of X confirmed that new preventative measures have been implemented on Grok,” said Fahmi during Minister Question Time (MQT) in Parliament on Thursday (Jan 22).
According to Fahmi, representatives of X have assured that Grok cannot be misused to create pornographic and sexual images and videos.
“X has also given commitment and cooperation to prevent the spread of harmful content online through X and Grok.
“Following that, I have also asked X representatives to verify the measures taken to the MCMC, because MCMC, as the regulatory body, can evaluate its effectiveness and can take the necessary follow up action,” said Fahmi.
Fahmi also said many countries have taken action against Grok and X over security and public interest factors.
“For example, the temporary ban and regulatory measures in Indonesia and the Philippines,” he said.
Fahmi was responding to Datuk Mumtaz Md Nawi (PN-Tumpat), who asked about steps taken against Grok to safeguard social media users.
Mumtaz then asked a supplementary question on steps taken to prevent harmful content on X.
Fahmi said his ministry may revise the eight million or more user threshold for social media platforms in the country to be deemed registered as Application Service Provider Class (ASP)) licence holders.
“This is quite a huge incident and therefore, we will revise the eight million user threshold,” he said.
Presently, Fahmi said X is exempted from the ASP(c) licence because it has less than eight million users.
Grok was temporarily blocked on Jan 11 due to repeated misuse of the AI chatbot to generate obscene, sexually explicit, indecent, grossly offensive and non-consensual manipulated images, including content involving women and minors.
