X brings back its transparency report for the first time since 2021

Much like before, the new report outlines how X enforces its policies on illegal, hateful or fraudulent content. In the first half of the year, users reported 224,129,805 incidents where they believed those rules were violated.

Nearly four in 10 (36.47%) of those incidents were flagged for abuse and harassment, followed by hateful content (29.85%) and violent posts (17.85%). Other flagged issues in the report include private content (4.42%), misleading identities (2.31%) and violent/hateful entities (3.99%).

As a result, 5,296,870 accounts were suspended, while 10,675,980 posts were removed or labeled for violating platform rules.

X uses both machine learning and human moderators to make these calls, depending on user reports and proactive detection. Decisions hinge on factors like whether the report came from the victim or a bystander, the user’s history and the severity of the violation.

The outcome? The rate of violating posts versus suitable ones during the first half of the year was a minuscule 0.0123%, according to the report. That’s the number of posts removed or labeled for breaches, divided by the total posts made during the period. Essentially, it’s X’s way of saying the odds of stumbling across rule-breaking content are slim — at least, on paper.

Whether anyone buys that is another story. The platform’s not exactly celebrated for accuracy or truth these days, so it’s easy to imagine these numbers being met with a healthy dose of skepticism from users and advertisers alike.

Still, X has to do something to change that narrative. Since Musk’s takeover, concerns about content moderation and amplification have only grown — not because the policies themselves are flawed, but because enforcement has been seen as lacking. And any attempt by X’s leadership to claim otherwise has been undermined by the fact that the company’s transparency reports were essentially shelved. Bringing them back suggests a return to normality of sorts for a platform that was considered more transparent among its peers prior to Musk’s arrival.

With that said, this most recent iteration is very much a work in progress — the latest report doesn’t measure up to its predecessors. Key elements like government requests, once a core part of transparency reporting, are notably absent, as is any data covering the gap since the last report.

“They [X] can be transparent now about the actions that they’re attempting to take, but the damage to their reputation may already be done,” said Christopher Spong, associate director of social media and communications at Collective Measures.

After all, the platform’s CEO famously told advertisers to go “fuck themselves.”

While some advertisers took the hint and walked away, others didn’t. Instead, they saw the comments for what they were and kept their distance — though some showed up at X’s New York headquarters last week to hear more about its future plans. That’s the dilemma for many: They recognize X’s value to their marketing goals, but aren’t willing to risk the hit to their reputations that comes with being associated with Musk.

X’s response is to try and remind them why they liked advertising on the platform in the first place. The transparency report, the recent gathering and the latest pitch are all efforts to recapture what X once was — and what its leadership still believes it to be at its core. Whether advertisers buy into this remains to be seen.

“Even after moving towards transparency reports, advertisers who aren’t already on X likely won’t consider X,” said Josh Rosen, president of Hotspex Media. “Sure, there are those who hesitate because of the controversy surrounding Musk, but in the end, it still boils down to efficacy. As much as X wants to be perceived as the social media platform for advertisers, there’s still no data that shows any significant ROI from advertising on X. It’s simply not worth the trouble for advertisers.”