The Philippines announced on January 15, 2026, that it would block Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok, becoming the third Southeast Asian country after Indonesia and Malaysia to ban the controversial tool over concerns about its ability to create sexually explicit and non-consensual deepfakes, particularly involving children.
According to Department of Information and Communications Technology Secretary Henry Rhoel Aguda, the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center is coordinating with the National Telecommunications Commission to implement the block, emphasizing the need to "clean the internet now, because much toxic content is appearing, especially with the advent of AI," with authorities citing Grok as a vector for online sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
The ban came hours after Musk's social media platform X announced measures to prevent Grok from undressing images of real people, including children, amid growing global backlash and the launch of an investigation by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who described the "vile" decision to allow sexually explicit deepfakes as having zero tolerance for AI-based creation of non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material.
While xAI implemented restrictions including geoblocking in certain countries, limiting image generation to paying subscribers, and preventing sexualized alterations of real people, critics including UK officials dismissed these measures as "insulting" to victims, arguing they merely transform an unlawful AI feature into a premium service rather than implementing proactive filters like competitors OpenAI and Google use to prevent harmful content before generation.
The Philippine government ordered local telecommunications companies to block and restrict access to Grok within 24 hours under the Cybercrime Prevention Act, with the ban remaining until Musk's company complies with the country's internet fair-use policy and demonstrates capability to prevent creation and distribution of non-consensual content, though authorities acknowledge the chatbot may still be accessible through X's integrated AI assistant for Premium subscribers.
