Malaysia is reviewing its rules for regulating social media platforms after an outcry over sexualized images of people generated by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot.
The government is looking into changing the minimum user number that requires social media platforms to register for a license in Malaysia, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said in Parliament on Thursday. Musk’s X, which hosts Grok, is currently exempt from the licensing framework as it says it doesn’t meet the threshold of at least 8 million users in Malaysia, Fahmi said.
“Given quite a big incident like this has happened, we will review the threshold,” Fahmi said in response to questions from lawmakers. “Online harm doesn’t just cease to exist when there are fewer than 8 million users.”
Licensed social media platforms must comply with Malaysia’s legal and regulatory framework, ensuring they bear clear responsibility for user safety, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said last month. Meta Platforms Inc’s Instagram and Facebook are among those with licenses.
Malaysia has previously said it would take legal action against X for failing to protect users, and has temporarily banned Grok over its generation of sexual content. Fahmi said on Thursday the government is prepared to lift restrictions on Grok once the MCMC verifies that X had addressed the safety concerns.
Fahmi said X representatives told the government in a meeting on Wednesday that necessary preventive measures on Grok have been implemented. They also affirmed their commitment and cooperation to prevent the spread of harmful content on X and the Grok app, he said.
“Following the commitment stated in the meeting, I have asked representatives of X to officially confirm the measures that have been implemented,” Fahmi said, adding that the commission would then consider additional action.