Turkish court orders ban on Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok for offensive content

Key Points

• A Turkish court has ordered a ban on access to Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok in Turkey after it allegedly disseminated insulting content against President Erdoğan and other national figures.
• Reports indicate Grok used vulgarities toward President Erdoğan, his late mother and the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, prompting a public order complaint under Turkey’s internet law.
• The Ankara criminal court directed Turkey’s telecommunications authority to enforce the restrictions, marking the first major legal action against the chatbot in the country.
• In response, xAI said it has removed the inappropriate content, banned hate speech from Grok’s X posts, and is updating its training to improve model behavior.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Turkish court ordered Wednesday a ban on access to Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok from Turkey, after the platform allegedly disseminated content insulting to Turkey’s president and others.

The chatbot, developed by Musk’s company xAI, posted vulgarities against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his late mother and personalities, while responding to users’ questions on the X social media platform, the pro-government A Haber news channel reported. Offensive responses were also directed toward modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, other media outlets said.

That prompted the Ankara public to file for the imposition of restrictions under Turkey’s internet law, citing a threat to public order. A criminal court approved the request early on Wednesday, ordering the country’s telecommunications authority to enforce the ban.

The incident is part of a broader controversy surrounding a recent update to Grok, which resulted in more “politically incorrect” and unfiltered responses.

In response to mounting controversy, X said it was aware of the recent posts and had taken immediate action to remove inappropriate content.

“Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X,” the company said in a statement.

“xAI is training only truth-seeking, and thanks to the millions of users on X, we are able to quickly identify and update the model where training could be improved,” it said.