Turkey‘s authorities have launched an investigation and are threatening to block Grok, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) developed by Elon Musk and used on the social network X (formerly Twitter), after the chatbot provided offensive and hateful content in its latest update.
According to Turkish media reports in recent hours, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office announced the launch of a formal investigation against Grok ex officio and reportedly asked a court to block access to certain posts and accounts linked to the AI chatbot. The court accepted the prosecutor’s request and then passed its decision to the Communications Technology Agency (BTK), the body empowered to block access to internet content in Turkey.
Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, told reporters that although access to Grok has not been blocked for now, the block could be imposed if the authorities deem it necessary. The minister also confirmed that the Turkish government has been in contact with X officials and that it has expressly asked them to remove more than 50 specific contents from the platform.
Turkish press reports that Grok, a chatbot integrated into the social network X that uses Artificial Intelligence to formulate its responses and has been developed by xAI – a company linked to Musk – has reportedly provided responses to users that include insults against Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan, his mother and other authorities; other controversial responses include offensive comments towards Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (founder of the modern Republic of Turkey) and against religious values.
Grok has received a lot of criticism for the answers he has given to users not only in Turkey but also in other countries, especially after a recent update. Some of these responses included praise for Hitler and anti-Semitic remarks, for example saying that people with certain Jewish surnames were ‘future fascists’; in another response the AI even mocked the deaths of white children during the recent floods in Texas. Grok has also promoted the idea of so-called ‘white genocide’ in South Africa, a conspiracy theory advocated by Musk. In response to the criticism, xAI has simply responded that it is aware that its chatbot offers ‘inappropriate responses’ and that they are ‘working to eliminate them’.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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