X Corp—X increased compliance with government censorship requests to 98.8% under Musk, with requests doubling
Despite Musk's free speech positioning, data showed X complied at least partially with 98.8% of government takedown requests from October 2022 to April 2023. Government requests more than doubled from 348 to 971 compared to the same period a year earlier, with Turkey responsible for half of all requests, followed by Germany and India. The company blocked content in Turkey prior to the May 2023 presidential election. Musk stated 'Twitter doesn't have a choice but to obey local governments' when confronted with the data, though X took the opposite stance in Brazil, refusing a court order and being temporarily banned.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authoritarian Compliance | +toward | primary | -1.00 |
| Press Freedom | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.498 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.59)× agency (reactive ×0.75)
Evidence (1 signal)
Rest of World analysis found X complied with 98.8% of government takedown requests under Musk
A Rest of World analysis using Lumen database data found Twitter complied at least partially with 98.8% of government takedown requests from October 27, 2022 to April 13, 2023. Government requests more than doubled from 348 to 971 compared to the same prior-year period. Turkey was responsible for half of all requests. Musk responded that Twitter 'doesn't have a choice but to obey local governments.'