X to Notify Users if Posts are Restricted by Government Requests

The social media platform X will now notify users when their posts have their reach restricted (shadowbanned) due to government requests or legal provisions in a particular country.

According to a report from TechCrunch on Monday (21/9) local time, X announced this update as an expansion of its ‘Under the Hood’ transparency feature, which provides information regarding moderation decisions made against user accounts and posts.

Through this update, users can identify if their posts are experiencing downranking—a reduction in reach—as a result of content restrictions imposed by governments.

Previously, users were unable to see directly whether their accounts or posts had been labelled or downranked by X. This lack of clarity frequently led to allegations that the platform was shadowbanning certain accounts.

Now, the information provided by the ‘Under the Hood’ feature will also include reach restrictions implemented by X to comply with national laws.

Downloaded files will indicate which posts are restricted in a specific country due to government requests, as well as the country that submitted the request.

Government requests for content restriction can be based on various regulations, ranging from laws concerning hate speech and terrorism-related content to election rules.

X stated that this update is part of the company’s efforts to increase transparency regarding how the platform moderates and determines the reach of content.

This move follows several other transparency initiatives undertaken by X, including the release of the source code for the ‘For You’ algorithm, which determines how posts appear on users’ main timelines.