Social media group X has agreed to assess and potentially remove a huge volume of posts containing hateful or suspected terrorist content following demands from Ofcom.
X has agreed to implement a review and assessment procedure for UK users that commits it to make a decision within 24 hours of a post being reported.
As a backstop, it will also review and assess at least 85% of UK suspected illegal terrorist and hate content reported through its dedicated UK illegal content reporting tool within a maximum of 48 hours.
The company has also agreed to engage with experts regarding its reporting system and to take action against accounts operated by or on behalf of proscribed organisations.
X will submit performance data to the British regulator on a quarterly basis over a 12-month period to allow effective monitoring.
“Following intensive engagement carried out by Ofcom’s online safety team, X have committed to implementing stronger protections for UK users, which we will now monitor closely,” said Oliver Griffiths, online safety group director at Ofcom.
“We have evidence that terrorist content and illegal hate speech is persisting on some of the largest social media sites. We are challenging them to tackle the problem and expect them to take firm action. This is of particular importance in the UK following a number of recent hate motivated crimes suffered by the country’s Jewish community.”
Griffiths descirbed the commitments from X as a “step forward” but said there is “a lot more to do” to improve the safety of the platform.
“We’re grateful for the support we’ve received from civil society and other expert organisations to scrutinise these platforms, and we’ll continue working with them extensively to drive forward changes for people in the UK,” Griffiths said.
“Our Grok investigation into X remains ongoing, which is looking at the company’s compliance with duties to deal with illegal content, and the systems it has in place to do that.”
