X adds government-ordered visibility limit notices for users
Original: X will now tell users when governments have forced it to limit their posts
Why This Matters
Per-post government censorship notices set a new bar for platform transparency, pressuring rivals to follow.
X announced on September 21, 2026, that users will now be notified when their posts have been shadowbanned or downranked due to government-mandated content filtering. The feature expands the existing 'Under the Hood' transparency tool, which lets users download account and post data as a JSON file, now including which posts were withheld and by which country.
X expanded its 'Under the Hood' transparency tool to show users when their accounts or posts have had visibility limited because X is complying with local laws. Previously, that information was invisible to users — a gap that fed longstanding accusations of secret shadowbanning. The updated tool, available in app settings to any user who has posted at least 10 times in a given month, generates a downloadable JSON file detailing applied labels, downranking actions, and now country-specific content withholding orders. The file identifies which posts were withheld and names the country that made the legal demand.
Governments request removals for varied reasons: hate speech laws, anti-terrorism statutes, election rules. Free-expression advocates have long warned that such laws can also be used to suppress political dissent — a tension the update surfaces rather than resolves.
The move follows X's earlier open-sourcing of its 'For You' algorithm and portions of its codebase, including model configuration and ranking system parameters. X VP of Product Keith Coleman commented on those prior efforts, framing the disclosures as meaningful steps toward platform accountability. Most social platforms release government request data only in aggregate annual transparency reports — not at the individual account or post level — making X's approach notably more granular.