Shadowban: New Feature to Reveal When Governments Request Account or Post Restrictions on X

X has decided to enhance its transparency tools by informing users whether their posts or accounts have been restricted in access due to compliance with local laws or legal requests from governments.

This new feature is part of X's expansion of the "Under the Hood" tool, launched last August, aimed at giving users clearer insight into the platform's decisions regarding their accounts and content.

What is a "Shadowban"?

The new feature helps users determine if their posts have been subjected to what is known as a "Shadowban," a term used to describe restricting content visibility without fully removing it.

Instead of deleting the post, the platform lowers its ranking or reduces its chances of appearing to users, which can lead to a significant drop in views and engagement.

X's policies clarify that visibility-limiting actions may include excluding content from search results, trending topics, and suggested notifications, removing it from "For You" and "Following" feeds, limiting discovery only through visiting the publisher’s profile, and lowering its ranking among replies.

Previously, users could notice a decline in post reach but often lacked sufficient information to determine whether this was due to a platform decision, content ranking algorithms, or a legal action.

Governments Restricting X Content

The most notable change in this update is showing cases where reduced post visibility results from X complying with local laws or legal requests.

The "Under the Hood" tool will indicate whether a user’s account or posts have had their visibility reduced due to local law enforcement, reveal posts blocked within a specific country in response to a legal request, and identify the country issuing the request.

X states in its policies that governments and legally authorized entities can request the platform to block specific content. If the company receives a valid, narrowly defined legal request, it may block the post or account only within the relevant country, rather than globally.

Reasons governments may cite for such requests include local laws on hate speech, terrorism-related content, and election regulations. However, free expression advocacy groups warn some countries may also use content laws to suppress political opposition.

How Does a User Know They’re Shadowbanned?

The feature relies on the tool X launched last August, allowing users who posted at least 10 times in the past month to download a JSON file containing aggregated statistics and account information.

The data reveals whether the platform flagged the account or posts during the previous month and whether these actions affected content visibility.

With this update, the file will also include cases where account or post visibility was restricted due to compliance with local laws, specify posts blocked within a particular country in response to a legal request, and identify the requesting country.

This represents a more detailed level of transparency compared to traditional transparency reports, where tech companies typically present government requests in aggregate form. X instead brings part of this information down to the individual user and post level.

Receiving a government request does not mean X automatically complies. The company says it reviews all government and legal requests to ensure they meet legal requirements and may object to those it deems legally unsound, overly broad, or an unacceptable burden on free expression.

X’s policy aims to notify affected users about content removal requests and send them a copy of the request when permitted by law. However, notification may be prohibited in certain cases, such as when a court order is sealed.

The platform allows users to appeal if they believe their content was blocked in error—either by replying to the email X sent regarding the legal request or by contacting the support center for issues related to local law enforcement applications.

This move is part of X’s broader effort to disclose more details about how content is managed and ranked on the platform.

Earlier, the company made parts of the algorithm responsible for selecting and ranking posts on the "For You" page available as open source. It later expanded the publicly accessible codebase to include more details about model settings, filtering processes, and the core content ranking system.