X has agreed to process the vast majority of content flagged as illegal “hate” under the UK’s Online Safety Act within 48 hours, giving Ofcom, Britain’s speech regulator, a significant new enforcement win.
The platform committed to “review and assess UK suspected illegal terrorist and “hate” content reported through its dedicated UK illegal content reporting tool on average within 24 hours of it being reported, to be calculated as a mean” and to “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 deal is a notable reversal for a platform that, less than a year ago, publicly accused Ofcom of taking a “heavy-handed approach” and warned that the Online Safety Act was “seriously infringing” on free expression.
X’s August 2025 statement, titled “What Happens When Oversight Becomes Overreach,” called out regulators by name and argued that the law amounted to a “conscientious decision to increase censorship in the name of ‘online safety.’” That language is gone now. What’s left is a compliance agreement with specific performance targets and a 12-month reporting obligation.
The commitments go beyond speed of review. X also agreed to block access to accounts in the UK if they are reported for “posting UK illegal terrorist content” and deemed to be “operated by or on behalf of a terrorist organisation proscribed in the UK.”
The platform will share quarterly performance data with Ofcom so the regulator can audit compliance. And following complaints from organizations that couldn’t tell whether X had received or acted on their reports, X agreed to “engage with experts regarding reporting systems for illegal hate and terror content.”
Who those experts are tells you something about the direction of travel. Ofcom’s own press release names the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) as one of the organizations it worked with to “gather evidence about suspected illegal terrorist content and illegal hate speech online.”
The CCDH is a pro-censorship campaign group co-founded in 2018 by Imran Ahmed and Morgan McSweeney, who went on to become UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
McSweeney stepped down from CCDH’s board two days after Starmer became Labour leader. The organization maintains close ties to the current government and has stated that its goal was to “kill Musk’s Twitter,” according to leaked internal documentsreported by Matt Taibbi and Paul Thacker.
Ahmed himself was sanctioned by the US State Department in December 2025 over concerns that his organization had led “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints.” A federal court blocked his deportation with a temporary restraining order.
This is the organization Ofcom chose to help build the evidence base for pressuring X into compliance. Ahmed, for his part, welcomed the deal. Speaking to POLITICO, he said CCDH will be “watching closely to ensure this results in meaningful action, not just words.”
Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s Online Safety Group Director, framed the agreement as a necessary step. “We have evidence that terrorist content and illegal hate speech is persisting on some of the largest social media sites,” he said.
“We are challenging them to tackle the problem and expect them to take firm action.”
X’s agreement also includes the dedicated UK illegal content reporting tool, which is specifically designed for flagging content that violates Britain’s censorship law.
That tool creates a direct pipeline from whoever reports the content to X’s review queue, and from there to Ofcom’s auditing process. The 24-hour average and 48-hour backstop create a system where the pressure is always toward deletion. When you have to process 85% of flagged content within two days and a regulator is auditing your speed, the incentive is to delete first and reconsider never.
Every platform operating in the UK is watching this deal and calculating the cost of resistance versus compliance. The message from Ofcom is clear: agree to our terms, on our timeline, using our preferred partners as evidence sources, or face investigation, fines, and potential shutdown.
2 Responses
Hate is nothing but negative sentiments.
Then we have the statement:
The elected politician expressed great MISANTHROPY towards the taxpayers.
The crowd ABHORRED the elected politician molesting children.
Hate crime is motivated by PREJUDICE.
The ability to distinguish right from wrong.
Now tell me, where is there something wrong for DISLIKING politicians that repeatedly continues to do these things?
They just want the PREPOSSESSES in advance.
WE ARE IN NO WAYS TIRED, WE SHALL IN NO WAYS REMAIN SILENT, WE HAVE SEEN THE COMING OF THE GLORY OF THE LORD…. Censorship fascism that “hates” righteousness and loves unrighteousness/sin continues to flourish and metastasize in all NUTO countries and the rest of the official and unofficial countries on planet earth due to the fact unrepentant devil worshipers have in the past and continue to occupy at least 97 percent of the highest and most meaningful positions of power and authority over others in the planetary government, corporate, private institution and private business human power structures. Nevertheless, in accordance with God’s command to hate evil/sin and love good/righteousness, regardless of the temporary and finite unjust consequences imposed against them, (even unto unjust cancellation, forced bankruptcy, starvation, torture, false imprisonment, and martyrdom) by “on high” and street level unrepentant devil worshipers; by God grace alone, for his glory alone, our best humans (i.e. those born with the mark/777 of the Holy Spirit, who have experienced their regeneration/born again moment) the world over must and will continue without ceasing to expose, oppose, obstruct, prevent, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict and sentence the abominable sins, high crimes, human and civil rights violations of those born with the mark/666 of the beast/Antichrist aka unrepentant devil worshipers, correct their harmful and dangerous misinformation and disinformation with the truth, obey God’s holy immutable laws in thought, word and deed in their relationship with the true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, other and self and promote righteousness in others in obedience to God’s holy immutable laws in thought, word and deed for the holy purpose of decreasing unjust pain and suffering and increasing just peace and prosperity, for the best common good of mankind, especially the tax oppressed, working class, peasant masses, who since the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden have always been the most harmed by the woefully incorrect theology of “on high” unrepentant devil worshipers united to their official acts in word and deed within the most meaningful positions of power and authority over other in the planetary government, corporate, private institution and private business human power structures.