X will now tell users when their posts have been shown to fewer people because the company is complying with local laws. The feature expands Under the Hood, a transparency tool launched in August, and it will also name which country made the request and which posts were withheld there.

Anyone who has posted at least 10 times in a month can download their stats as a JSON file from the app settings.

What makes this unusual is the level it operates at. Most large platforms publish aggregate transparency reports covering government demands by country and volume, which tells you nothing about your own account. This reports at the account and post level, so a user can see that a specific post was throttled, in a specific country, at a specific government's request.

Until August, none of this was visible at all, which is why so many users accused the platform of shadowbanning them with no way to check. The file is JSON, so non-technical users are advised to drop it into a chatbot to have it explained, which is a fair reflection of how raw the output is. It follows X open-sourcing its For You ranking algorithm in August, including model configuration, filtering and core ranking parameters.

Governments cite hate speech laws, terrorism-related content and election rules when making these demands, and free expression groups argue some states use the same laws to suppress political dissent.

TechCrunch's Sarah Perez reported the expansion and noted that publishing at account level rather than in aggregate is a departure from how the industry handles this. X Open Source announced it, saying the change followed appreciation for more transparency into government-required content filtering.

TechCrunch's August coverage quoted X vice president of product Keith Coleman saying people would be fairly shocked at what the company was releasing.

For anyone who publishes for a living, and that includes every business running a brand account here, this closes a gap that has never been closeable. If your reach collapses, you have until now had no way to tell whether the algorithm changed, your content got worse, or a government asked for you to be quieted. Now at least one platform will tell you.

The practical step is unglamorous: if X matters to your distribution, pull the file monthly and keep it, because a record of throttling is only useful if you have it from before the month you need it. The wider point is the direction of travel.

Australia is legislating for algorithm opt-outs and the EU wants platforms to prove they are safe rather than regulators prove harm. Platforms are being pushed to show their work, and X has chosen to do it voluntarily, and at a level nobody else does.

Worth noting the incentive too, since a company that publishes government takedown demands puts the pressure on the government rather than itself.

You might also like our piece on Australia's algorithm opt-out laws, the EU's proposed under-13 social media ban, and X launching Cashtag trading.

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