Long before Elon Musk’s takeover, Twitter carved out a unique niche among major social networks with its implicit acceptance of pornography.
This week, the platform, now reborn as X, took a bold step by explicitly permitting “consensually produced and distributed adult nudity or sexual behavior,” as long as it is properly labeled at the time of sharing.
These new “Adult Content” labels will serve as a gateway, requiring users to click to reveal the posts, according to X’s revised policy.
Users under 18, or those who haven’t provided their birth date, will find this content out of reach. Moreover, users who prefer to steer clear of sensitive material can fine-tune their settings accordingly.
While X has remained tight-lipped about these changes, the company’s Safety account stirred the conversation with a post on Tuesday, announcing ongoing updates and clarifications to many of its help pages.
“The intent of these updates is not to change our enforcement, but to make our rules clearer for everyone,” the account said, hinting at a new era of transparency and clarity.
According to partner at the consultancy Four Corners Public Affairs and a former policy communications official at Twitter, Nu Wexler most platforms prefer to maintain fuzzy guidelines for [adult] content or avoid the topic altogether, and X deserves credit for clarifying their policy,
“They still have to increase enforcement against illegal content” like child sexual abuse material and nonconsensual porn,”
”However, this announcement will save them time with policymakers who don’t know that nudity has always been allowed on Twitter and X.” Perhaps more importantly, the new policy signals to adult-content creators that “X is open for business.”
Embracing adult content could be a strategic move for X to set itself apart from its more conservative competitors in the creator market.
Historically, X has been the only major social media platform that permits sex workers and artists depicting nudity to share their work without restriction.
In contrast, Meta has a history of removing sex workers’ accounts when their content is deemed too sexual. The policy has made X a favored platform for adult-content creators to promote their work on sites like OnlyFans.
According to Brooke Erin Duffy, an associate professor of communication at Cornell University who is writing a book on the creator economy, social media can be an unstable space for sex workers and adult-content creators.
She shared an example of a creator with 4 million Instagram subscribers who faced the risk of being locked out of her account for extended periods, which severely affected her career.
As social media companies increasingly view influencers and creators as pivotal to their growth, X might see a chance to engage a group that has been marginalized on other platforms, according to Duffy.
Hints have suggested that Musk might be considering paywalled adult videos as a potential revenue stream.
An academic analysis found that major adult-entertainment sites attract more monthly traffic than Amazon, Netflix, or TikTok. This audience is also willing to pay: creators on OnlyFans, for instance, generated $5.5 billion in revenue in 2022.
However, venturing into the adult-content industry carries significant risks. In 2022, The Verge reported that Twitter had been exploring the idea of an OnlyFans competitor but abandoned the plan due to concerns about its ability to monitor and prevent child sexual abuse material, which is illegal.
Some individuals working in the sex industry are skeptical
Since Musk took control, some sex workers have noticed a plateau in their audience figures, as indicated by adult performer Jenna Starr, who operates under a stage name and engages with an audience of nearly half a million on the platform.
Starr noted that her account no longer appears in search results, a phenomenon she attributes to being “shadow banned.”
Lana Smalls, a 23-year-old adult performer who also uses a pseudonym, expressed skepticism regarding the impact of the platform switch on sex workers who rely on it to direct traffic to monetized platforms like OnlyFans or PornHub.
“We’ve always shared adult content on Twitter,” Smalls informed Tech Brief via text message. “If they lift the shadow ban and allow us to monetise our accounts, that would be a positive step,”
“However, given X/Twitter’s track record of unfulfilled promises regarding bot removal and free speech, I’m not anticipating significant changes.”
Elon Musk’s bold move to embrace adult content with ‘X’ marks a significant shift in the landscape of social media dynamics. As sex workers navigate the implications of this change, concerns arise regarding audience reach and monetisation.
While some hope for improved visibility and opportunities for profit, skepticism looms regarding the platform’s commitment to addressing longstanding issues such as shadow banning and content monetization.
As ‘X’ continues to evolve under Musk’s leadership, its stance on adult content could shape its future trajectory in the realm of social media.
