Metro Manila, Philippines — The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) will be blocking Elon Musk’s AI model, Grok, as early as this week amid concerns that the app is being used to create sexualized AI deepfakes.
Secretary Henry Aguda said the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) is coordinating with the National Privacy Commission (NPC) to assess and potentially restrict access to the platform.
“So, CICC is now working together with the NPC to block it,” Aguda said during a Palace briefing on Thursday, Jan. 15.
Aguda assured that Grok’s digital footprint in the Philippines remains relatively small, adding that ChatGPT continues to be the most widely used AI application in the country.
Developed by Musk’s company xAI, Grok is integrated into the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and allows users to generate images.
Authorities, however, flagged the tool for being misused to remove clothes from photos of real individuals, depicting them in sexually explicit deepfake content.
In Southeast Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia have already blocked Grok over similar concerns related to sexually explicit material.
