X Shares Latest Info on Content Removals and Government Requests

X has shared its second Transparency Report, showing all of the enforcement actions that it took in the second half of last year, based on rule violations, government requests, and more.

And while X has claimed significant progress in combating spam (X says that there was a 19% decline in spam reports versus H1), there are some other interesting points of note within the details.

First off, X has provided an overview of the total enforcement actions that it took based on detected rule violations between July to December 2024.

There are some interesting anomalies here, when compared against X’s last transparency update, which covered the first half of 2024.

For example, X removed 1.16m fewer posts due to “Abuse and Harassment” in the second half of the year (-43% versus last report), yet there were only 164k fewer account suspensions in the same time frame (-15%).

That seems like a shift in approach, with X potentially giving more leeway to such reports, while there’s also been a huge drop off in posts removed due to “Child Sexual Exploitation” (a decline of 80%) versus a much smaller decline in accounts suspended for the same (-35%).

Child safety has been a major focus for Musk and Co., and was one of the big points of note that Elon made when he took over at the app. Such a big decline in removals either suggests that accounts are posting this type of content less frequently, or that X’s previous efforts to combat such have had an effect. Or X isn’t doing as much to remove it as it had been.

Either way, it is also worth noting that X is suspending far more accounts on this front than Twitter had been.

Back in 2022, in Twitter’s final transparency update before Elon purchased the app, it reported that it had suspended 696k profiles in H1 for “Child Sexual Exploitation”. Despite the decline in suspensions this period, X is still operating at well over double that rate.

Also worth noting given the broader narrative around the app: X suspended 2.3k profiles for “Hateful conduct” in H2 2024. In 2022, it reported that it had suspended 111k profiles for the same.

So on this front, X is suspending far fewer accounts than Twitter had been, though X had noted this would be a focus under its “freedom of speech, not reach” approach.

In terms of legal requests, X received 97,000 legal action requests in the first half of the year, and complied with 82% of them.

Which is a higher rate of compliance that the X’s last report (70%), and a lot higher than Twitter had been actioning (54% as of its H1 2021 report).

So while X has taken a stand on some legal requests, most notably in response to Brazilian court orders (which eventually saw the platform temporarily suspended in the nation), and a removal order from Australian authorities, it is actioning a lot more of these overall.

And the top nations requesting such are no surprise: Turkey, Japan, South Korea, EU.

Turkey, South Korea and India have long been among the most active requestors of such removals, while these same four nations were the leading submitters in X’s last report.

There are some questions here around Elon Musk’s own business dealings, and his personal relationships with each nation, and how that seemingly relates to X’s willingness to action such. But the numbers also show that, despite Musk’s public claims of broader freedom of speech, X is actually removing a lot more content based on government requests than Twitter was, while overall, it’s also suspending a lot more users.

The reasoning may be different, with fewer users being booted for, say, hate speech. But overall, X has actually been far more restrictive in its approach, based on its own reported figures.

As you can see in this comparison, X is actually suspending more accounts in every category except hate speech, despite having essentially the same amount of active users. So even with its reach penalties versus account restrictions approach in place, it is still punishing a lot more profiles with suspension.

Is that due to better enforcement overall, or more selective punishments in certain areas? If these figures are correct, it does show that X is likely taking more action than many would perceive, which does show that it is serious about brand and user safety. It’s just not seemingly as active in certain areas.

Well, one.

Though, really, X can’t win either way. If it’s suspending more users, then its much lauded “free speech” approach comes into question, while if it doesn’t suspend enough, then it’s seen as letting too much through under its revised content strategy.

Overall, I would say that this data reflects exactly what you would expect, that X is taking more action where it chooses, and despite its claims of respecting freedom of speech, it’s still facing challenges in finding the right balance.

Just like every other app.

You can check out X’s latest Transparency Report here.