X, the microblogging platform owned by Elon Musk, will inform users when their posts have been ‘shadow-banned’ or curtailed from getting a larger audience due to local laws that the company is legally bound to follow. This feature expands on the company’s existing transparency tool, “Under the Hood,” which allows users to see if any labels have been applied to their account or posts that could affect visibility.
The expanded “Under the Hood” tool will show users if their account or posts had their visibility limited because of required compliance with local law(s), as stated by the company: “In addition to showing labels applied to your account and posts in the prior month, Under The Hood now shows if your account or posts had their visibility limited because of required compliance with local law(s).” To access this feature, users need to download “Under the Hood”. This feature is being rolled out to all accounts that meets the basic eligibility criteria of ten-plus posts in the prior month and where the account is at least one year old.
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Background on the Transparency Tool
X introduced “Under the Hood” which allows users to see if any labels have been applied to their account or some of their posts that could affect its visibility across the microblogging platform. In a post on X, the company says they expanded the scope of Under the Hood after seeing peoples’ response to it.
By downloading “Under the Hood,” users can determine if some posts were withheld in a country and, if so, which country.
Legal Battle with the Indian Government
X is currently engaged in a legal battle with the Indian government over content removal. In March 2025, the company contested that the Union Ministry of IT had unlawfully expanded censorship powers, allowing for easier removal of online content. X claimed that the ministry was using Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology (IT) Act to issue content-blocking orders without the stringent legal safeguards required under Section 69A.
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The company argued that the authorities were using Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology (IT) Act to issue informal or unchecked takedown orders, bypassing required safeguards and oversight. This challenge was dismissed by a single-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court, marking the second instance in two years that X has lost a challenge to the government’s powers to block or take down content.
Implications of the New Feature
X has also made efforts to open-source its “For You” algorithm and parts of its codebase, allowing for better parameters for adding weights to different signals. The company’s decision to bring transparency around government orders and their impact on user posts comes as SpaceX seeks approvals for its Starlink satellite-to-handheld internet services in India.
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