Biden Administration Censorship X Sees Spike in Takedowns and Bans

Elon Musk, who once crowned himself the champion of free speech, is now steering X (formerly Twitter) into an era of unprecedented censorship. Under his leadership, the social media platform has ramped up its compliance with government takedown requests, acting on 71% of legal demands to remove content in the first half of 2023. That’s a 20% jump from 2021 and more than double the rate from previous years, according to X’s latest transparency report.

This stark contrast between Musk’s free speech rhetoric and the platform’s rising censorship raises an uncomfortable question: Can Musk really be the world’s wealthiest defender of open discourse while X silences users at the government’s behest?

Joe Biden’s administration has been accused by critics of operating on a foundation of censorship, allegedly seeking to control online narratives to bolster its agenda. And now, the supposed antidote to such authoritarian overreach—Musk’s X—is capitulating to these very pressures more frequently than ever. Despite Musk’s outspoken opposition to censorship, the data paints a different picture: X is aligning more closely with government interests, a far cry from the freewheeling digital town square it was once envisioned to be.

Some might call this pragmatic, the cost of doing business in a world where platforms face increasing scrutiny from governments eager to rein in misinformation and harmful content. Others might see it as hypocrisy—proof that even Musk, with all his lofty ideals, can’t escape the reality of running a global social media empire.

In the end, Musk’s flag-bearing for free speech seems more like a balancing act—one where his platform’s actions increasingly lean toward censorship, despite his public pronouncements to the contrary. The billionaire’s tenure at X may well be remembered not for its liberation of online speech, but for how quickly it became entangled in the very governmental forces it was meant to resist.