Freedom of speech is always being brought up by Elon Musk -how he believes that anybody can say anything they want-and X will allow its users to post whatever they like without the government censoring anything.

Indeed, Musk has continued to berate former Twitter management for, in his opinion, rolling over on all sorts of government demands. But under Elon, the platform has rolled over on every government request, only with more whining about how it isn't fair, and how it doesn't actually want to do so.

But it has done so, anyway, though at the same time, Elon has made a bigger deal about some requests than others.

Why? Well, we don't know, but you decide what the driving factors are with this list of government requests to X, and X's response on each case.

Turkey

Turkish officials have made the most government requests for censorship actions on X, with Turkish officials looking to quash dissent, particularly around local elections.

In May last year, X restricted access to posts at the behest of the Turkish government, which was criticized by free speech activists who considered this to be straightforward censorship of government criticism ahead of the federal poll.
Musk defended the action by saying that:
"The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets."

X has since clarified further details on the nature of censorship requests from the Turkish government, which it has complied with in each case.

India

Indian authorities have been the second most active to request content restrictions on X, starting with the deletion of a BBC documentary that was critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the start of 2023.

The documentary was on the 2002 Gujarat riots, and it also raised questions over Modi's leadership during the riots. Keeping that in mind, and because the claims might lead to anti-government sentiments, the Modi Government asked X to take down around 50 posts that were linked to a video of the documentary.

X did this, with Elon at the time commenting that

But our law for putting things on a social medium is very, very restrictive in India and we have to be quite inconsiderate of some laws this country has over here.

In February of this year, X also complied with demands from the Indian Government to remove posts denouncing the Government's attempt to quash farmers' protests that threatened to bring New Delhi to a grinding halt. X did challenge the demand in public but again, gave in to the request, all the Indian Government's efforts aimed at quashing public dissent.

Germany

Under Musk, X has been far more willing to share user data when the German authorities show up at their doorstep seeking information relating to the probe involving breach of hate speech laws applicable in the country.
The laws in Germany specifically outlaw such activities as denial of Holocaust, incitement of hate against minorities, and defamation/slander against elected persons.

Twitter had rejected many of these demands, often citing legal details in some instances, but X has been far more willing to cave to German authorities on the same.
Brazil
This month, X made a public stand against a censorship demand from the Brazilian Government, which relates to a years-long investigation into political misinformation in the app.
The request came during an ongoing investigation into "digital militias," which had initially been accused of spreading false, defamatory reports concerning Brazil's Supreme Court justices. Dissemination of the reports had fuelled protests and even brought threats to the justices' doorstep. The investigation further escalated and became more inciteful, just like the January 6th riots when former U.S. President Jair Bolsonaro lost election. On that day, rioters stormed government buildings, including the Supreme Court in a bid to overturn the outcome.

The ultimate result of this investigation was a request to X to remove 150 profiles in the app which investigators had found to be driving these actions.

X protested the demand, saying that it was beyond the bounds of Brazilian law, but a week later, amid mounting fines, and the threat of a full ban of the app in the region, it complied with the request.

The tech mogul has continued to blast Brazilian authorities for their demands.

Pakistan

Last week, the Pakistani Government formally declared a ban of X on the region, having banned the app since local elections were held in February.

According to Pakistan's interior ministry, X has been banned "in the interest of upholding national security, maintaining public order, and preserving the integrity of our nation.".

The crux of the matter is that X was used by Imran Khan supporters who claim that he was removed unfairly in 2022, and this year's poll was rigged.

According to local officials, they requested X to remove profiles and posts related to this element which it thinks could incite unrest, and that its failure to comply with such requests led to the ban.
X claims to be unaware of any such requests.
Australia

This request came at a time when a church leader was stabbed in Sydney last week. Australia's eSafety Commission asked X to delete posts that would further increase the already-high tensions following the attack.

The social network sites distributed vast videos of the incidence to cause massive unrest amongst the local community of the Assyrian Christian minorities as affirmed by the authorities. Initially, X had remained supportive of the Commission only that it limited some pieces of footage; its last orders of take-down now cover a myriad others from their posts, probably considered inflamable.

UPDATE: The eSafety Commission clarified that the request to take down is only on the videos of the incident, not on the commentary or discussion related to it.

X says that this is an overreach in the request by the Commission for the longer period, and has promised to contest it in court. Of particular concern to X is that the Commission wants content deleted from access by all users in the world and not just Australians. According to the eSafety Commission, if the content is not removed from access globally, it can still be accessed by the Australians through VPN.

On balance, most of the requests relate to quelling unrest in one form or another. Which could, in some cases, be seen as an overreaching of government authority and, in others, might be related to public safety, and really, much of it is a matter of personal judgment on what constitutes a valid request, and what is a step too far.

The most worrying aspect is now that as the head of X, Musk is permitting political influence activities to carry on where he feels it should and pushing back according to his personal leaning in other areas.

He hasn't resisted the requests for Indian authorities as his business venture, Tesla, is still there working on new distribution deals. He has also capitulated to requests from Turkey, where Musk has had contact with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, and he has reportedly engaged in discussions with opportunities open for both Tesla and Starlink in the region.

German firms are now increasing manifold their requests to X. The European major production house of Tesla is at Berlin.

X was meant to push the case against Brazil, in which Tesla is still exposed; at the same time, Musk had also proven to be a supporter to outgoing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro with whom he had reached an agreement over Starlink would become the most crucial internet provider of that region. Since that time, the connections between Starlink and illegal mining operations in the Amazon - an enforcement area for the new government have been determined. That has brought it questioning an enlarged deal over Starlink.

X is pushing back in Australia, which is not a significant market for any of Musk's other ventures, and he has also been vocal about the Australian Government's handling of COVID and other challenges to the Australian eSafety watchdog around the surge in hate speech on the app.

The trend forming is that Musk and X are looking to challenge governments that he ideologically opposes, yet he is more willing to collaborate with those he agrees with.

Also worth noting: China is a critical partner for Tesla both in production and sales.
Which is completely not what the proposed bill is about, because it deals with the issue of influence operations that may be abetted by a Chinese-owned app, as rated by cyber security experts. Using Elon's logic, Russian and Chinese state media should also be allowed to freely broadcast in the U.S., even if what they share is false, and intended to sway American voters.

He is essentially a compromised mass entity, having bias so profound that he has no right to make decisions on policy rulings on any social platform.

Of course, you can argue that for years Twitter was already skewed to the left-wing agenda, and that is merely rebalancing. Well, not even. He is biased towards himself: towards Elon and whatever lines up with his own and other interests.

This, in itself, is an act of political influence, totally of his own. Of course, Elon can't be the President because he wasn't born in the U.S., so he is actually carving out his own little niche of political influence to ensure that the opinions sway into whatever benefits him, through the app.

That is an extremely dangerous situation, and unsustainable in the long term.