X, formerly known as Twitter, removed a post denying the Holocaust after facing criticism from the Auschwitz Museum. Initially, the platform stated that the post did not violate its rules.

The offensive post was a response to a tweet from the museum regarding a three-year-old Jewish girl who had been killed in the gas chambers of the concentration camp. The post in question referred to her death as a "fairy tale" and employed anti-Semitic stereotypes.

X's policies explicitly prohibit Holocaust denial. Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp in Poland witnessed the murder of at least 1.1 million people, with nearly one million being Jews.

The museum highlights that over 200,000 of them were children and young individuals, subjected to gas chambers, starvation, forced labor, and medical experiments.

According to a post by the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau on X, they had reported the offensive reply.

However, the platform initially responded that, after reviewing the "available information," no rules had been violated. X attributed this initial response to an error during the initial review but later escalated the matter and removed the post during a second review.

X's policies on abusive behavior prohibit "violent event denial" and include the denial of mass murders like the Holocaust, school shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters.

Although the platform has removed the offensive post, the account responsible for it was still accessible as of Monday at 17:00 GMT, containing other content that many would find offensive. The company is currently assessing whether to permanently suspend the account.

Elon Musk, who identifies as a free speech advocate, refutes claims of an increase in hateful posts on X since he assumed control. In December, he tweeted that hate speech had declined by a third.

X, now known as X, acknowledges that its team overseeing hate speech has become smaller since Musk's takeover.

However, the company argues that its new approach, emphasizing zero tolerance for illegal content and de-amplifying and removing advertisements from lawful yet offensive material, is more effective.

Contrary views exist, with reports from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue suggesting a significant and sustained rise in anti-Semitic posts on X following Musk's takeover in October.

The Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) also claims that X "fails to act on 99%" of hateful messages from X Blue accounts (the platform's subscription service), leaving posts containing racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, or conspiracy content visible for days after being reported.

X Corp has initiated legal action against the CCDH, challenging the research as "inflammatory, misleading, and unsupported claims based on a cursory review of random tweets."

Criticism has also arisen regarding Musk's decision to reinstate previously banned accounts, including that of a neo-Nazi website founder.

An analysis by BBC Monitoring of over 1,100 reinstated X accounts revealed that 190 of them promoted hate and violence, including depictions of rape and abuse targeted at women and the LGBT community.

X contends that researchers who search for offensive content have a different experience from ordinary users who are less likely to encounter such material.