Takedown Observer: a tool and dataset to map censorship on social media platforms

6 March 2025

The internet Research Lab is proud to announce the alpha launch of Takedown Observer, a tool and dataset to map government censorship on social media platforms.

Governments often issue legal content takedown orders to social media platforms. In turn, these platforms implement "geoblocking" – withholding content from an internet user based on their geographic location – at their servers to comply with these legal orders. In some countries, takedown orders are kept confidential, and in some cases, even the people whose content is being blocked are not made aware of these orders, creating an opaque censorship regime and blind-spots for researchers trying to understand what content governments are blocking online.

We are developing a new tool and an accompanying dataset to automatically detect and document what content is being withheld on social media platforms in response to legal takedown orders from government entities.

Takedown Observer is a browser extension that detects block pages during regular browsing of social media platforms by users and reports them to an open dataset to create a repository of blocked content. The tool currently supports detection of blocked accounts on X, and we are working to add support for different platforms and different types of content in the future. We believe that such tools will bring much-needed transparency to social media censorship and can help hold censors accountable. You may view the dataset at: https://takedown.observer.

If you would like to know more or explore collaborations, please reach out to us at [email protected].

This announcement was written by Divyank Katira, who developed Takedown Observer with support from ARTICLE 19's Internet of Rights Fellowship.