X will flag posts limited by government content demands

X said Monday it will now tell users when their posts have been “shadowbanned” — shown to fewer people — because of the company’s compliance with local laws. The feature expands X’s existing transparency tool, “Under the Hood,” which lets users see whether any labels have been applied to their account or posts that could have affected visibility on the platform. It will also flag any downranking of a user’s posts due to government-required content filtering.

Previously, X did not make information about how a user’s account or posts were being labeled or downranked available to end users — a gap that led many to accuse the company, formerly known as Twitter, of shadowbanning them. Most companies that share data about government requests do so only in aggregate “transparency reports,” not at the account or post level.

That started to change in August, when X rolled out the “Under the Hood” tool, giving users more visibility into its moderation decisions. Anyone who has posted at least 10 times in a month can use the option in X’s app settings to download their aggregate stats as a JSON file, a standard data format — non-technical users, X notes, can drop the file into any AI chatbot to have it explained. That same process will now also show whether an account or its posts had their visibility limited because X is complying with local laws, including which posts were withheld in a given country following a legal demand, and which country made the request.

Governments cite a range of reasons for such demands, from hate-speech laws to terrorism-related content to election rules. Critics, including free-expression groups, say some countries also use these laws to suppress political dissent.

The update follows other transparency moves at X, including open-sourcing its “For You” algorithm, which selects posts in users’ main feed, and expanding the open-sourcing of parts of its codebase — an effort that added detail on model configuration, filtering, and core ranking, including the parameters used to weight different signals that determine which posts get shown. At the time of that release, X’s vice president of product, Keith Coleman, said it was “the kind of thing that I think people will be fairly shocked that we are releasing.”

Why it matters

The move puts government content-removal demands in front of the individual users affected, rather than only in aggregate reports — arriving as X continues to open up its ranking algorithm and codebase, a transparency push that puts pressure on other platforms to match it.