LOS ANGELES — Social media platform X on Wednesday released its first transparency report since Elon Musk bought the company. The report, which details its content moderation practices, said the company removed millions of posts and accounts from its site in the first half of this year.
TwitterX, which has since renamed itself Twitter, suspended around 5.3 million accounts during the period, compared with 1.6 million accounts it reported having suspended in the first half of 2022. The social media company also “removed or labeled” more than 10.6 million posts for violating its platform rules, categorizing around 5 million of those as violating its “hateful conduct” policies.
Posts containing “violent content” (2.2 million) and “abusive or harassing” (2.6 million) also made up a large proportion of the content that was labeled or removed. The company did not distinguish between the number of posts that were removed and the number that were labeled.
Meanwhile, in a blog post published in April 2023 in lieu of a transparency report, the company said it had asked users to remove 6.5 million pieces of content that violated its rules in the first half of 2022, a 29% increase from the second half of 2021.
Some have accused Musk of turning a fun platform into a chaotic and toxic one. Musk has a history of posting conspiracy theories and clashing with world leaders and politicians. X is currently banned in Brazil due to an ongoing dispute between Musk and a Brazilian Supreme Court judge over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
To enforce its rules, Company X says it uses a combination of machine learning and human review. Automated systems take action or refer content to human moderators. The company says posts that violate Company X’s policies make up less than 1% of all content on the site.
When Musk tried to buy Twitter in 2022, he said he was buying it because the company wasn’t living up to its potential as a “platform for free speech.” Since buying the company in October that year, Musk has fired much of its staff and made other changes that have led to a steady exodus of celebrities, public figures, organizations and ordinary people from Twitter.