Today, X released its first corporate transparency report since Elon Musk bought the company, formerly Twitter, in 2022.
Before Musk took over, Twitter published transparency reports every six months. They covered much of the same ground as the up-to-date X report, providing specific numbers on takedowns, government information requests, and content removals, as well as data on what content was reported and, in some cases, removed for policy violations. Twitter’s last available transparency report covered second half of 2021 and was 50 pages long. (The X is shorter at 15 pages, but government requests are also listed elsewhere on the company’s website and are constantly updated to comply with various government orders.)
Comparing the 2021 report to X’s current transparency report is a bit tricky, because the way the company measures things has changed. For example, in 2021, it reported 11.6 million accounts. Of those 11.6 million, 4.3 million were “actioned,” while 1.3 million were suspended. According to the up-to-date X report, more than 224 million accounts and pieces of individual content were reported, but 5.2 million accounts were suspended as a result.
While some numbers remain seemingly consistent across the reports—reports of abuse and harassment are predictably high—there’s a stark difference in other areas. In the 2021 report, for example, accounts reported for hate content made up nearly half of all reports, and 1 million of the 4.3 million accounts were subject to action. (The reports used to be interactive on the website; the current PDF no longer lets users drill down for more detailed breakdowns.) In the up-to-date report, X says it only took action on 2,361 accounts for posting hate content.
But that could be because X’s policies have changed since it was Twitter, which Theodora Skeadas, a former member of Twitter’s public policy team who helped found the Moderation Research Consortium, said could change the way the numbers look in the transparency report. For example, last year the company changed its hate speech policy, which previously Covered up misgendering and dead namesAND withdrew its Covid-19 disinformation policy in November 2022
“As some policies have been modified, some content is no longer violative. So if you’re looking at changes in quality of experience, it can be difficult to capture that in a transparency report,” he says.
X also has lost users since Musk took over, which further complicates what the platform’s up-to-date reality might look like. “When you factor in changing usage, is that a lower number?” he asks.
After taking over the company in October 2022, Musk laid off most of the company’s trust and safety staff, as well as its policy staff, the people who write the platform’s policies and enforce them. Under Musk, the company also began charging for its API, making it harder for researchers and nonprofits to access X data to see what was really happening on the platform. That could also explain the changes between the two reports.