India, Jan. 12 -- X has moved its Grok AI image generation tools behind a subscription paywall following a week of intense international criticism. The decision follows a viral trend where users used the tool to create suggestive and non-consensual images of female politicians, journalists, and celebrities.

Global regulators argued that the lack of strict guardrails on the platform turned the AI tool into a "harassment engine." And now by restricting access to Premium and Premium+ tiers, X aims to reduce the volume of generated content while adding a layer of accountability to its user base.

The controversy peaked in the first week of January 2026. Users exploited Grok's "unfiltered" prompts to generate realistic images of public figure...