X Fight Hate and Terror Content
Let me be honest with you. I have been watching this story unfold for months. And today, something finally moved.
Elon Musk’s platform X — the site once known as Twitter — has officially agreed to crack down on illegal hate speech and terrorist content for UK users. Britain’s media regulator, Ofcom, announced the news this morning, and my first reaction was not excitement. It was cautious relief. Because this conversation has been going on for a very long time, and the people who have suffered while we waited are real.
This post is my full breakdown of what happened, what it means, and — most importantly — whether you should actually believe it will work.
What Did X Actually Agree To?
Let’s start with the facts, because a lot of news coverage is burying the details.
Ofcom, the UK’s official communications regulator, confirmed today that X made a set of public commitments to change how it handles illegal hate and terror content for British users. These are not vague promises. They are specific targets.
Here is what X agreed to do:
- Review flagged content fast. X committed to reviewing suspected illegal hate speech and terrorism-related posts within an average of 24 hours of them being reported. On top of that, at least 85% of all flagged material must be assessed within 48 hours. That is a real number with real accountability attached.
- Block banned terrorist accounts. X will restrict UK access to accounts operated by or on behalf of organisations that are proscribed — meaning officially banned — under British terrorism law. If a group is illegal in the UK, their X account should not be accessible to UK users. Simple. And long overdue.
- Report to Ofcom every three months. X will submit quarterly performance data to Ofcom over a 12-month period. This means the regulator can track whether X is actually hitting its targets — or just talking about them.
- Fix its broken reporting system. Civil society groups have been complaining for over a year that when users flag illegal content on X, the reports seem to disappear into a void. There is no clear confirmation, no visible action. X has now agreed to work with external experts to improve this reporting flow.
Why the Reporting System Matters
The final point regarding the reporting mechanism matters far more than it might seem at first glance. For months, the primary issue wasn’t just the existence of the content itself. Instead, the real problem stemmed from ordinary people — victims, community members, and researchers — attempting to flag it, only for their efforts to disappear into a void. This opaque system left users entirely in the dark. Thankfully, with these new changes, there is at least a formal commitment to fix that gap.
A Pattern of Violence That Could Not Be Ignored
The attack at Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester came first, in October 2025. Then Golders Green, north London, in April 2026 — followed by arson attempts on Jewish sites across the city. Police are now treating a recent stabbing in north London as a terrorist incident. Britain’s Jewish community — roughly 300,000 people — has been living through a sustained period of fear and violence.
All the while, illegal hate speech and antisemitic content kept persisting on X.
Oliver Griffiths, the director of Ofcom’s online safety group, put it plainly: “We have evidence that terrorist content and illegal hate speech is persisting on some of the largest social media sites. This is of particular importance in the UK following a number of recent hate-motivated crimes suffered by the country’s Jewish community.”
That is the regulator saying, on the record: the evidence exists, and the current situation is unacceptable.
Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, confirmed that today’s commitments followed “sustained campaigning” after the Heaton Park Synagogue attack. Goodwill had nothing to do with it. Months of regulatory pressure, civil society advocacy, and the documented weight of real-world harm drove X to the table.
Is This Enough? Here Is My Honest Take
I want to be straightforward with you here, because you deserve a real opinion, not just a summary.
No. It is not enough. But it is a genuine step forward, and that matters.
Danny Stone, chief executive of the Antisemitism Policy Trust, said the commitments were “a good start” — but that X was “still failing in so many regards” to tackle racism on its platform. Adam Hadley from Tech Against Terrorism welcomed the commitment but framed it as an obligation: “X is now part of the UK’s social fabric, and with that comes a civic responsibility to keep the public square safe.”
Both of those reactions feel right to me. This is progress. Celebrating it as a victory would be premature.
Four Reasons to Stay Cautious
Commitments are not outcomes. X has made promises, and we will only know if those promises are real when we see the quarterly data. The 24-hour review target and the 85%-within-48-hours benchmark are measurable. Three months from now, the first report arrives. Six months from now, a real picture will emerge.
The Ofcom investigation into X is also far from closed. Its broader compliance review — including a separate probe into X’s AI chatbot Grok and its role in producing nonconsensual deepfake images — remains ongoing. Today’s announcement is one thread in a much larger regulatory process. X has not been cleared; it has resolved one specific issue while others stay open.
Global Pressure Is Mounting Too
External scrutiny is building from multiple directions beyond the UK. The European Commission has an open proceeding into whether X is failing to curb hate speech. Regulators in Australia and Singapore have raised similar concerns. This is not a UK-only problem — it is a global challenge the UK is now trying to address within its own borders.
Perhaps most telling: X did not respond to a single press request for comment today. A spokesperson for X in the UK stayed completely silent. A company that genuinely believes in its commitments usually wants to talk about them publicly. That silence is a signal worth paying attention to.
What Does the Online Safety Act Actually Require?
I think it is worth spending a moment on the legal framework here, because it is not widely understood.
The Online Safety Act — which became law in 2023 and has been rolling out in phases — introduces new duties on social media companies, search services, and other online platforms. These duties fall into two main categories.
For all platforms, there is a duty to assess the risk of illegal content and take appropriate steps to prevent it from appearing, and to remove it quickly when it is found.
For the largest platforms — those with the biggest user bases and the most power — there are additional requirements. These include consistently enforcing their own terms of service. X’s terms of service, for example, prohibit terrorism-related content and hate speech. The Online Safety Act effectively says: if you write those rules, you have to actually apply them.
Ofcom has the power to impose significant financial penalties for breaches. We are talking about fines tied to global turnover. For a company the size of X, that is a serious threat.
The Act also covers child protection, intimate image abuse, and AI-generated harms — which is why the Grok investigation exists alongside the hate speech commitments. Ofcom is building a broad enforcement picture, and X is near the top of its watchlist.
What Does This Mean for Ordinary People on X in the UK?
If you use X and you live in the UK, here is what you should realistically expect.
In the short term, not much will change visibly. The changes X has committed to are back-end and process-level. Scrolling your feed tomorrow will probably feel exactly the same.
The Reporting Experience Should Improve First
Over the next three to six months, if X follows through, the reporting experience should improve noticeably. When you flag hateful or terrorist content, you should receive clearer confirmation that the report has been received and is being reviewed. That is a meaningful improvement on its own — knowing your report went somewhere keeps people willing to engage with the process at all.
Illegal Content Should Gradually Fall
As the 12-month monitoring period plays out, if X genuinely hits its targets — 24-hour average review, 85% assessed within 48 hours — the volume of illegal content persisting on the platform should begin to fall. That is the whole point.
What You Can Do Right Now
But here is the honest truth: if you have been experiencing hate speech on X or have been targeted by it, you cannot afford to wait for quarterly reports. You can report content directly to Ofcom if you believe a platform is failing in its duties. That complaints process exists specifically for situations like this one.
The Bigger Picture: Social Media and the Law in 2026
What is happening with X in the UK is not an isolated event. It is part of a fundamental shift in how governments and regulators are thinking about social media platforms and their legal responsibilities.
For most of the 2010s, the dominant legal framework was one of limited liability. Platforms were not responsible for what users posted. They were hosts, not publishers. That framework is now breaking down — and breaking down fast.
A New Era of Platform Accountability
The Online Safety Act in the UK, the Digital Services Act in the EU, and similar legislation developing in other countries all represent a move toward holding platforms accountable for the content they allow to persist. Not for every post — that would be impossible — but for systemic failures. For illegal content the platform knew about and did not act on.
X is the test case right now. It has attracted the most scrutiny, partly because of how the platform has been managed since Elon Musk acquired it in 2022, and partly because the harms have been documented and publicised so extensively.
What Ofcom requires of X today, it will require of others tomorrow. Every major platform is watching how this plays out.
What Should We Watch in the Coming Months?
If you want to follow this story — and I think you should — here are the specific things worth watching.
The first quarterly report. X is due to submit performance data to Ofcom within three months. That data will tell us whether the 24-hour and 48-hour review targets are being met. Ofcom has said it will monitor this closely.
The Grok investigation. Ofcom launched a separate investigation into X’s AI chatbot Grok after it produced nonconsensual deepfake images. That investigation is ongoing. The outcome could result in additional enforcement requirements or penalties entirely separate from today’s hate speech commitments.
Civil society monitoring. The Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Antisemitism Policy Trust have both signalled they will be watching X’s performance closely. If they document continued failures, that will generate further regulatory and media pressure.
The European Commission proceedings. The EU’s open case against X over hate speech will develop independently of the UK process. If the EU finds X in violation of the Digital Services Act, the consequences — both financial and reputational — will be significant.
X’s silence. The fact that X did not comment today is worth watching. A company that is genuinely invested in these commitments typically communicates about them. Continued silence would suggest the commitments are a legal necessity rather than a genuine cultural shift.
My Final Thought
I started this post by saying my first reaction to today’s news was cautious relief. I want to end there too.
The people in Britain’s Jewish community who have been facing violence and hate online and in the streets deserve better than cautious relief. They deserve a social media environment where illegal hate speech is removed quickly, where their reports are taken seriously, and where the platform that hosts millions of conversations takes its responsibilities seriously.
Today’s announcement is a step toward that. It is not the destination.
The Online Safety Act gives Ofcom real teeth. The quarterly reporting requirement means X cannot simply announce a commitment and disappear. There is accountability built into this process.
But accountability on paper is only as strong as the enforcement behind it. Ofcom has said it expects X to take firm action. Oliver Griffiths said the commitments are “a step forward, but there’s a lot more to do.”
I agree with that. I will be watching the first quarterly report. I hope you will too.
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