X suspensions have more than quadrupled since Elon Musk bought Twitter, the social platform reported on Wednesday. At the same time, X is censoring far less content and accounts for violating its “hateful content” policy than it did pre-Musk ownership.
That may seem incongruous, so let’s dive into the figures a bit more.
The key takeaway: X.com suspended 5.3 million accounts during the first half of 2024, according to its new Global Transparency Report — the first the company has released since Musk became head honcho in 2022. That’s a 307% increase in suspensions compared to its last report, which looked at the second half of 2021, when 1.3 million accounts were suspended.
What’s behind the surge in suspensions? X.com is going after a lot more accounts for violating its rules against kids, with 2.78 million accounts punished for violating its “Child Safety” policy.
The policy is “designed to protect minors from sexual and physical abuse, as well as psychological harm that may result from sharing such content,” according to X’s rules. This category includes content that “contains child sexual exploitation, physical child abuse media, and media of minors in physical altercation.”
During the second half of 2021, the company then known as Twitter suspended nearly 600,000 accounts for violating its rules against child sexual exploitation.
What X isn’t doing as much is censoring content that violates its “hateful conduct” policy. During the first half of 2024, X suspended 2,361 accounts for violating the policy — which is 97.7% less than it did compared to 2021, when the company was still being run by Jack Dorsey.
X’s “hateful conduct” policy says users “may not directly attack other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”
Musk, since taking over Twitter, has said he wants to be more pro-free speech than the previous regime.
“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy,” Musk posted earlier this year. “That’s why it’s the FIRST Amendment. Without free speech, all is lost.”
There are a few other things worth pointing out in Wednesday’s report, including how many posts are being removed. X booted or added labels to 10.68 million posts during the first half of 2024; in the second half of 2021, the company said it removed 5.1 posts.
Under Musk, X also took action against more accounts that violate its “abuse and harassment” rules. X suspended 1.1 million accounts for violating this policy, which is about 70,000 more than in its 2021 report.
You can read the full X Transparency Report for yourself by clicking here.
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