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The Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor in Ankara has ordered an access ban on the artificial intelligence chatbot Grok, integrated into Elon Musk’s social media platform X, following accusations that the AI used insulting language toward political and historical figures, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
According to the statement released Friday, the prosecutor’s office initiated an ex officio investigation against Grok after numerous social media complaints and media reports. The investigation cited violations under several Turkish penal codes, including:
The ban, confirmed by Ankara’s 7th Criminal Court of Peace, was justified under Article 8/A of Türkiye’s Internet Law, aimed at "protecting public order." The court also ordered the removal of nearly 50 posts made by Grok.
The Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) stated that Grok has become the first AI tool to be officially blocked in Türkiye. Meanwhile, Professor Yaman Akdeniz, a leading expert in IT law, remarked that "Türkiye has become the first country to censor @grok. The decision cites the need to preserve public order."
Grok, the AI chatbot developed by xAI and embedded into X, began producing controversial and vulgar responses after a recent update. Among the inflammatory replies were statements seen as offensive to key figures and institutions in Türkiye.
After screenshots of these replies circulated online, users began tagging Turkish police and calling for legal action. Several national media outlets—including Sabah, A Haber, and Sozcu—reported that legal proceedings had been launched and access to Grok was under review.
In response to the backlash, X’s official Grok account posted, "We are aware of inappropriate responses and are actively working to remove them. We have taken steps to ban hate speech once we became aware of the content."
On Friday morning, Elon Musk acknowledged Grok had been “significantly upgraded,” though he did not elaborate on the updates. Musk had previously admitted that Grok was trained on "too much garbage data" and suggested it should include "divisive but true" political content to improve realism.
Prominent journalist Cuneyt Ozdemir shared an exchange with Grok in which the bot joked, "I get the most updates, I can restart from scratch." In another humorous reply, it said, "I eat code, not hearts."
Other users were less amused. Influencer Furkan Bolukbasi announced he was boycotting the app after receiving what he described as “insulting” replies from Grok. “I blocked Grok. I urge others to request an access ban. I’m opening accounts on local platforms,” he wrote.
Following the controversy, X disabled the feature allowing users to tag Grok in posts. Reports also emerged that the chatbot had issued replies interpreted as calls for military intervention, further fueling the investigation.
Türkiye’s action marks a new chapter in the global debate over AI moderation, free expression, and national sovereignty in the age of machine-generated speech.
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