Indonesia and Malaysia briefly blocked Grok in January 2026 over sexualised fake images, and Turkish courts ordered some of its posts on X blocked in 2025. China’s censors block grok.com too.
By the vpnAlert team · Background checked on 10 Oct 2026 · Tested every day since 29 Sep 2026 ·
How we test · Report a wrong result
Every day we open Grok from inside 24 countries, mostly over home broadband, and record
where it’s blocked, since when and how.
1 of 24tested countries with a confirmed block of Grok
Grok is blocked in China. Grok itself turns away visitors from Belarus and Russia. 24 of 24 results confirmed in the last 48 hours.
Blocked means the networks we test there failed to open grok.com, twice, while it opened elsewhere.
“Turned away by the site” means Grok itself refused visitors from that country.
“In our tests since” is when our own tests first showed the result, not when a ban began: where it reads “our first test”, the block may be older. Older results are excluded from current totals.
Background
Where Grok is restricted, and why
In Turkey, in July 2025, after the authorities said Grok had insulted President Erdoğan, Atatürk and religious values, an Ankara court ordered 50 of its posts on X blocked. Transport minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said no total ban had been imposed, though one would follow if necessary. In September 2025 a court ordered Grok’s whole X account blocked, citing national security and public order, but X hadn’t enforced it when the order was reported.
In January 2026 Indonesia and Malaysia became the first countries to block Grok, after it was used to create sexualised fake images of real people, including women and minors. Indonesia’s communications ministry blocked it on 10 January, calling non-consensual sexual deepfakes a serious violation of human rights and dignity, and Malaysia’s regulator, the MCMC, followed on 11 January, saying X’s and xAI’s replies to its notices relied mainly on users reporting abuse.
Neither block lasted a month. Malaysia lifted its restriction on 23 January 2026, after X confirmed new preventive and security measures, and Indonesia began restoring access on 1 February under what it called conditional normalisation, warning that it could block Grok again. In the UK, Ofcom opened an investigation into X over the images that January, and the European Commission opened its own under the Digital Services Act.
SpaceXAI, the SpaceX unit that replaced xAI in May 2026, sets limits of its own: Grok’s terms bar anyone located in a country under US trade or economic sanctions or embargoes. Mainland China is a government block instead: GreatFire’s tests there have recorded interference with grok.com since February 2025, and its latest tests, in the three months to October 2026, all found it blocked.
Key dates
Indonesia begins restoring access to Grok, conditionally, after X sends a written commitment to follow Indonesian law.
Malaysia lifts its restriction on Grok after X confirms new preventive and security measures.
Malaysia’s regulator, the MCMC, temporarily restricts Grok, citing repeated misuse to create obscene, non-consensual images.
Indonesia temporarily blocks Grok over sexualised deepfakes, the first country to do so.
A Turkish court orders Grok’s X account blocked, citing national security and public order; X hadn’t enforced it when the order was reported.
An Ankara court orders 50 of Grok’s posts on X blocked after the authorities say it insulted President Erdoğan, Atatürk and religious values.
Get past a block
Grok blocked where you are?
A VPN connects you through a server in another country, so a local block on Grok no longer applies. Where VPNs themselves are blocked, you need one that can disguise its traffic.
NordVPN
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Obfuscated servers for networks that block VPNs
Connects you through a server in another country
Encrypts what your internet provider could otherwise see
Test machines on the two biggest home-internet providers in most countries open the homepage every day.
A failure counts only when it happens twice on the same network, while the site opens from other countries.
A change is published only after re-checks a few hours later and again the next day, on several machines per provider, confirm it. It’s dated from the first sighting.
Test machines caught getting around blocks, through a VPN or a filter-dodging tool, are set aside.
We test websites, mostly over home broadband. Apps, calls and mobile networks can behave differently.
Because it was being used to make sexualised fake images of real people, including women and minors. Indonesia’s communications minister called non-consensual sexual deepfakes a serious violation of human rights and dignity, and Malaysia’s regulator said X’s and xAI’s replies to its notices relied mainly on users reporting abuse.
Is Grok Banned in Turkey?
Not as a whole. In July 2025 an Ankara court ordered 50 of Grok’s posts on X blocked, after the authorities said it had insulted President Erdoğan, Atatürk and religious values, and the transport minister said no total ban had been imposed. A September 2025 order against Grok’s whole X account hadn’t been enforced by X when it was reported.
Has Malaysia Lifted Its Grok Ban?
Yes. The MCMC lifted its temporary restriction on 23 January 2026, after X confirmed it had added preventive and security measures, and said it would keep monitoring the platform. Indonesia began restoring access on 1 February 2026, warning that it could block Grok again if violations continued.
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Cite these results
Quote or republish today’s results with a link to this page: the monitor’s data is under a Creative Commons
Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0).
Sentence to quote
As of 13 Nov 2026, grok.com is blocked in 1 of the 24 countries in the vpnAlert Censorship Monitor’s daily test: China.
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Source: vpnAlert Censorship Monitor, test of 13 Nov 2026, https://vpnalert.com/tools/censorship-monitor/grok/ (CC BY 4.0)
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<a href="https://vpnalert.com/tools/censorship-monitor/grok/">vpnAlert Censorship Monitor: Where is Grok banned?</a> (test of 13 Nov 2026, CC BY 4.0)
APA
vpnAlert. (2026, November 13). Where is Grok banned? vpnAlert Censorship Monitor. https://vpnalert.com/tools/censorship-monitor/grok/
MLA
“Where is Grok banned?” vpnAlert Censorship Monitor, vpnAlert, 13 Nov 2026, vpnalert.com/tools/censorship-monitor/grok/.
Chicago
“Where is Grok banned?” vpnAlert Censorship Monitor, test of November 13, 2026, https://vpnalert.com/tools/censorship-monitor/grok/.
Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vpnalert.com/tools/censorship-monitor/grok/ |title=Where is Grok banned? |website=vpnAlert Censorship Monitor |publisher=vpnAlert |date=2026-11-13 |access-date=2026-11-13}}
