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X’s first quarterly report met the response-time commitments agreed with Ofcom for suspected illegal hate and terrorist content reported through its dedicated UK reporting tool. Ofcom has not published X’s exact average review time, and says the result does not resolve continuing concerns about whether illegal material is actually removed effectively. The investigation remains open.

What Ofcom’s October update says

Ofcom published its monitoring update on 14 October 2026 after receiving X’s first quarterly performance report. The regulator said the data appeared to show an improvement in the average time X takes to act on reports and that performance fell within the agreed response timeframes.

That wording matters: Ofcom did not disclose X’s exact average, so it is not accurate to claim that every report was handled in 24 hours or that X achieved a particular hourly figure. The published result is that the submitted performance was within the commitments X made for the monitoring period.

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What the 24-hour commitment covers

The commitment applies only to suspected illegal terrorist and hate content reported through X’s dedicated UK illegal-content reporting tool. It is measured over a three-month period, not item by item.

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Requirement How it is measured
Average review target X must review and assess reports within an average of 24 hours, calculated as a mean across three months.
48-hour backstop At least 85% of reports must be reviewed and assessed within a maximum of 48 hours during the same three-month period.
Reporting period X must submit performance data quarterly for 12 months.

“Review and assess” is a response-time measure. It does not itself prove that a post was removed, that an account was suspended, or that the final moderation decision was correct. Reports made through other channels are not automatically covered by these figures.

Why Ofcom is still concerned

Ofcom separates how quickly a platform responds from what happens after that response. In its October statement, the regulator said it had “ongoing concerns” about the effectiveness of X’s response to taking down illegal hate and terror content. It also reported mixed information about whether X was consistently delivering its commitment to engage with third-party experts.

The commitments followed evidence from civil-society and expert organisations that people had reported suspected illegal hate and terrorism content but were uncertain whether X had received or acted on those reports. Ofcom said illegal hate and terrorist material appeared to persist on some large social-media services, with concern heightened by recent hate-motivated crimes affecting the UK Jewish community.

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Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s Online Safety Group Director, said on 15 May 2026 that the regulator had evidence of terrorist content and illegal hate speech persisting on some of the largest social-media sites. He said Ofcom would closely monitor stronger protections X had committed to implement for UK users.

How Ofcom will check the figures

Ofcom says it will scrutinise X’s submitted data and cross-check the metrics against its own tests. The regulator has also told X that it must sustain, at a minimum, the performance shown in this first report. A single quarterly result therefore does not establish long-term compliance.

The wider commitments include improving reporting systems with expert input and withholding UK access to accounts that X determines are operated by or on behalf of UK-proscribed terrorist organisations. These obligations are monitored alongside the response-time measures.

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Has Ofcom found that X broke the Online Safety Act?

No final breach finding has been issued. Ofcom’s investigation is continuing and will assess whether X complied with its duties under the UK Online Safety Act.

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If Ofcom obtains reasonable grounds to believe X failed to comply, the next formal step would be a provisional view. X would then have a full opportunity to respond before Ofcom made any final decision. The October update should therefore be read as an interim monitoring result, not a legal clearance or a finding of wrongdoing.

The duties behind the investigation

Ofcom’s Online Safety Act guidance requires in-scope services to conduct illegal-content risk assessments, put protections in place, keep records, and provide usable reporting and complaints routes. Services must act swiftly to remove illegal content once they become aware of it.

Ofcom’s framework identifies 18 kinds of priority illegal content. They include terrorism; child sexual exploitation and abuse; hate; harassment; intimate-image abuse; fraud; drugs; weapons; serious self-harm; and cyberflashing. X’s 24-hour commitment concerns suspected illegal hate and terrorist content reported via the specified UK tool, rather than all 18 categories.

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Related changes involving pornography and Grok

The same Ofcom update described related product changes, but they are not evidence that X exceeded or missed the 24-hour review target. X changed its service so pornography-labelled content is consistently restricted for accounts that have not completed age assurance. Ofcom narrowed the remaining part of that investigation to illegal-content and complaints/reporting duties while continuing to monitor whether age checks work effectively.

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Separately, SpaceXAI (formerly xAI) restricted UK IP addresses from viewing, generating or sharing pornography through standalone Grok image generation and blocked sexually explicit conversations for companion chatbots such as “Ani.” Those actions concern access and age-related controls, not the timing metric for reports submitted to X’s UK illegal-content tool.

What happens after the first quarterly report

  1. Continued quarterly reporting: X is expected to provide data throughout the 12-month commitment period.
  2. Ofcom validation: Ofcom will compare X’s metrics with regulator-run tests and examine whether the methodology and results hold up.
  3. Assessment of outcomes: The regulator will continue examining actual takedown effectiveness, reporting routes and expert engagement, not just response speed.
  4. Potential enforcement: If the evidence supports it, Ofcom may issue a provisional view, consider X’s response and then reach a final decision.

The practical distinction for users is straightforward: X has so far met the agreed timing window for this narrowly defined reporting channel, while Ofcom is still testing whether fast review translates into reliable removal of illegal material.

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