(Los Angeles) Social media platform X released its first transparency report since its acquisition by Elon Musk on Wednesday. The report, which details its content moderation practices, shows that the company removed millions of posts and accounts from the site in the first half of the year.
X suspended nearly 5.3 million accounts during that period, compared to 1.6 million accounts in the first half of 2022. The company also “removed or labeled” more than 10.6 million posts for violating the platform’s rules, including about 5 million that it categorized as violating its “hateful conduct” policy.
Posts that included “violent content” (2.2 million) or “abuse and harassment” (2.6 million) also accounted for a large portion of the content labeled or removed. The company does not distinguish between the number of posts removed and the number of posts labeled.
By comparison, in an April 2023 blog post published as a transparency report, the company said it asked users to remove 6.5 million posts that violated the company’s rules in the first six months of 2022, a 29% increase from the second half of 2021.
Some have accused Mr. Musk of turning a fun platform into a chaotic and toxic one. The businessman has previously posted conspiracy theories and feuded with world leaders and politicians on his platform. X is currently banned in Brazil due to a clash between the billionaire and a Brazilian Supreme Court judge over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
To enforce its rules, X uses a combination of machine learning and human review. Automated systems take action or present content to human moderators. Posts that violated the platform’s policies accounted for less than 1% of all content on the site, the company said.
When Mr. Musk attempted to buy Twitter in 2022, he stipulated that he was doing so because the company was not living up to its potential as a “free speech platform.” Since acquiring it in October of that year, he has laid off a large portion of the company’s staff and made other changes, leading to a steady exodus of celebrities, public figures, organizations and ordinary citizens from the platform.