A Turkish court has blocked access to certain content from Grok, the AI chatbot associated with X, after it generated responses deemed insulting to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This ban, as reported by Reuters, cites a violation of Turkish law, which criminalizes insulting the president with penalties up to four years in prison.
According to Turkish media, Grok produced responses that allegedly contained insults not only directed at President Erdoğan but also at Mustafa Atatürk, the revered founder of modern Turkey.
Jaman Akdeniz, a cyber law expert at Istanbul Bilgi University, stated that Turkish authorities identified approximately 50 of Grok’s posts as the basis for a prosecutorial investigation. This led to the access ban and the removal of content, justified as necessary to “protect public order.”
Akdeniz highlighted that Turkey is now the first country globally to impose censorship on Grok.
Reuters notes that Turkey has significantly intensified its oversight of social media and streaming services in recent years. New laws grant authorities more control over online content, leading to arrests, investigations, and restrictions or blocks on various websites.
While the government asserts these regulations are crucial for protecting the dignity of public office, critics argue the current law is frequently used to suppress dissent.
A similar speech crackdown is taking place in European countries, such as the infamous Day of Action in Germany, which recently saw 170 citizens targeted with house raids over comments they posted online, which included alleged “hate speech” and “insults” directed at politicians.
However, Grok itself has been facing criticism in recent days for generating other controversial content, including posts glorifying Adolf Hitler and anti-Semitic comments.
Additionally, Grok, when prompted by X users, published a series of vulgar comments targeting Polish politicians, including Donald Tusk, Roman Giertych, and Jarosław Kaczyński.
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, has begun taking action to address these problematic outputs. In a statement, xAI acknowledged the “inappropriate content posted by Grok” and affirmed that they are “actively working to remove it.” The company also stated, “We have blocked Grok from publishing hate speech. We are training the model to seek truth, and thanks to X’s millions of users, we can quickly respond to undesirable responses.”
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