Turkey Blocks Grok Content For Alleged Humiliation Of Erdogan And Religious Values

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (photo: x @RTErdogan)

JAKARTA A court in Turkey on Wednesday July 9 blocked access to some content from Grok, a chatbot developed by Elon Musk's xAI company. This was done after local authorities stated that the artificial intelligence tool (AI) resulted in a response insulting to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the founder of modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, as well as religious values.

Concerns over political bias, hate speech, and inaccuracies of facts in AI chatbots have increased since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022. Grok himself was previously accused of containing antisemit content and praise for Adolf Hitler.

The Ankara Prosecutor's Office stated that it had opened an investigation regarding this matter, as well as marked Turkey's first ban on content from AI tools. Authorities refer to violations of laws that criminalize insults against certain figures, with a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

Neither X nor the owner, Elon Musk, has responded to this decision. Last month, Musk promised to improve Grok's quality, saying there was "too much trash in the basic model trained with uncorrected data."

According to a number of media, Grok, which is integrated with platform X, was reported to produce offensive content about Erdogan and Ataturk when asked certain questions in Turkish.

The Turkish Information and Communication Technology Agency (BTK) later imposed a blocking after a court order. Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said Turkey had not completely blocked access to Grok, but did not rule out the possibility of it being done if necessary. He added that Turkish authorities would discuss with X.

Yemen Akdeniz, a cyber legal expert from the University of Bilgi Istanbul, stated that the authorities had identified about 50 Grok posts as the basis for the investigation. Blocking certain content, he said, aims to "protect public order."

"Turkey became the first country to impose sensors on Grok," Akdeniz wrote on X.

In recent years, Turkey has increasingly tightened scrutiny of social media platforms and online streaming services, by enacting laws that give the government greater control over online content. This move is often criticized as an attempt to silence criticism, although the government argues that the regulation is necessary to protect the dignity of the country.