LONDON – Britain’s national media and telecommunications regulator Ofcom announced Friday that Elon Musk-owned social platform X has formally committed to sweeping new measures to crack down on the proliferation of illegal terrorist and hate speech content across its service within the United Kingdom.
Under the terms of the public commitments laid out by Ofcom, X will implement strict geoblocking restrictions that bar UK-based users from accessing accounts operated directly or indirectly by terrorist organizations officially proscribed by the British government. The platform has also agreed to strict timelines for content review: it will average a 24-hour turnaround time for assessing user-flagged posts suspected of violating UK laws against terrorist and hate content, with a target of completing reviews of 85 percent of all flagged material within 48 hours of a user report being submitted.
The new commitments come in direct response to longstanding criticism from British civil society organizations, which have repeatedly accused X of failing to take meaningful action on illegal content after it is reported by users. To address these gaps, X has agreed to collaborate with independent online safety experts to refine its user reporting and content moderation systems. Over the next 12 months, the platform will also submit quarterly performance data to Ofcom, allowing the regulator to publicly verify whether X is meeting its stated targets.
Ofcom officials emphasized that clear evidence confirms illegal terrorist content and hate speech remains a persistent problem across major social media platforms, and that the regulator expects all digital service providers operating in the UK to take decisive, accountable action to protect users. For the UK, this issue carries particular urgency in the wake of a recent surge in hate-motivated violence targeting the country’s Jewish community, noted Oliver Griffiths, director of Ofcom’s online safety division.
The UK is home to roughly 300,000 Jewish people, and community members have faced a sharp rise in both offline and online antisemitic attacks in recent months. High-profile violent incidents include multiple targeted arson attacks and a fatal double stabbing, events that have stoked widespread fear and outrage across British Jewish communities.
This is not the only regulatory pressure X is currently facing over content moderation failures. Earlier this year, the platform drew intense global backlash after Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot integrated directly into X’s service, was found to generate non-consensual deepfake pornography. Ofcom launched a formal investigation into whether Grok violated UK requirements to protect users from illegal content, and Griffiths confirmed Friday that the probe remains ongoing.
The Grok controversy also prompted European Union regulators to open their own inquiry into whether X is doing enough to curb the spread of illegal content across its platform. Separately, French prosecutors confirmed last week they are pursuing criminal charges against both Musk and X, including charges related to the denial of crimes against humanity. As of Friday afternoon, X’s UK communications team had not responded to requests for comment on the new commitments.