THE Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has received 17 complaints involving the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok on X, Datuk Fahmi Fadzil said.
The Communications Minister said the complaints comprised six official submissions to the MCMC, two police reports lodged by complainants, eight complaints made via social media tagging, and one first information report filed by the MCMC itself.
Following the complaints, Fahmi said he chaired a meeting with representatives from X, which was attended by senior officials from the Communications Ministry and the MCMC.
“The meeting sought explanations and commitments from X’s representatives regarding preventive measures, the upgrading of user safety features, compliance with Malaysian laws and steps taken to prevent harmful online content.
“Following the meeting, representatives of X confirmed that new preventive measures have been implemented on Grok,” he said during Minister’s Question Time in Parliament yesterday.
According to Fahmi, X’s representatives have assured the government that Grok can no longer be misused to generate pornographic and sexual images or videos.
“X has also committed to cooperating in efforts to prevent the spread of harmful content online through both X and Grok.
“Subsequently, I instructed X’s representatives to verify the measures taken with the MCMC, as the regulatory body, will evaluate their effectiveness and take any necessary follow-up action,” he said.
Fahmi added that several countries have taken action against Grok and X over security and public interest concerns.
“For example, temporary bans and regulatory measures imposed in Indonesia and the Philippines,” he said.
He was responding to Datuk Mumtaz Md Nawi (PN–Tumpat), who asked about steps taken against Grok to safeguard social media users.
Mumtaz later raised a supplementary question on measures to prevent harmful content on X.
Fahmi said his ministry is considering revising the threshold of eight million users for social media platforms to be required to register as Application Service Provider Class (ASP(c)) licence holders.
“This is a serious incident and we will review the eight million user threshold. Online harm does not only occur when a platform has more than eight million users,” he said.
Currently, Fahmi said X is exempted from the ASP(c) licensing requirement as it has fewer than eight million users in Malaysia.
