X Will Now Tell Users When Governments Have Forced It to Limit Their Posts

X announced on Monday that it will now notify users when their posts have been “shadowbanned,” meaning shown to fewer people, as a result of the company complying with local laws. The feature expands the social network’s earlier transparency tool called “Under the Hood,” which lets users see whether any labels have been applied to their account or posts that could have affected their visibility on the platform.

The tool will also highlight any downranking of users’ posts that results from government required content filtering.

A Shift From Secrecy to Account Level Disclosure

Previously, information about how an X user’s account or posts were being labeled and downranked was not available to end users. As a result, many people often accused the company, formerly known as Twitter, of having shadowbanned them.

In addition, most companies that share data about government requests do so on an aggregate basis through transparency reports, not at the account or post level.

That began to change in August, when X rolled out its transparency tool to offer more visibility into its moderation decisions. The “Under the Hood” option in the X app settings allows anyone who has posted at least 10 times during the month to download their aggregate stats as a JSON file, a standard data format. Non technical users can drop the file into any AI chatbot to have it explained.

What the New Disclosure Includes

This same process will now show whether an account or its posts have had visibility limited because X is complying with local laws. The file will also include which posts were withheld in a country following a legal demand, along with which country made the request.

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

Part of a Broader Transparency Push

The update follows a number of other transparency related efforts at X. These include the open sourcing of its “For You” algorithm, which selects the posts in users’ main feed, and an expansion of its efforts to open source parts of its codebase. The latter involved adding more detail, including on the model configuration, filtering, and core ranking system details.

That means the code now includes the parameters used to weight different signals, information that is key to understanding which posts are actually displayed.

At the time of that open sourcing effort, 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.”

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