During weekendformerly Twitter) has changed its terms of service to officially allow users to post adult content. Before the rule change, the platform had an unofficial policy that allowed users to upload this type of content, but it was neither allowed nor prohibited, operating in a gray area. Now, X users will be able to freely post NSFW content, as long as it was created consensually.
“We believe in the autonomy of adults to interact and create content that reflects their own beliefs, desires, and experiences, including those related to sexuality,” X’s updated guidelines state.
Anyone posting adult content will need to label it as such on their account to ensure that X’s filters place a warning in front of it. X’s new guidelines extend to bare AI-generated content.
Although X never explicitly allowed adult content, this type of content increased after the launch of Twitter Blue. subscription program. X’s new paid tier allowed sex workers and porn actors to charge their subscribers a fee for paywalled content, similar to how performers monetize content on social platforms. Only fans. Now, with the official rule change, it appears that X is mimicking OnlyFans’ efforts to build stronger business relationships between creators and the users who subscribe to their accounts. Despite its reputation as a haven for pornography – which is certainly prevalent on the site – OnlyFans has attempted to position itself as a platform where content creators of all kinds can establish closer ties with paying customers.
From Elon Musk bought in October 2022, he stated that the company must pursue subscription revenue in order to diversify its revenue streams. This belief was behind the launch of Twitter Blue, now known as X Premium, an early version of a porn-friendly X. However, these earlier plans fell apart in spring 2022 when X’s content moderation Teams realized they did not have the capabilities to adequately filter child sexual abuse material and other forms of illegal sexually explicit content, according to report from The Verge. As a result, the projects were put on hold.
Musk has big ambitions for X’s subscription business. In a pitch deck presented to investors, Musk proposed cutting Twitter’s advertising business (as it was called at the time) from 90% of its revenue to just 45% by 2028. That would mean subscription revenue would reach $10 billion per year by that date. That figure would double Twitter’s $5 billion in revenue in its last full year as a public company before Musk took it private.
Since then, it’s been difficult to gauge X’s progress against the benchmarks set by Musk. However, some initial reports from the early days of his tenure as X’s new owner show that the company has struggled to retain both users and advertisers. In October 2023, a year after Musk owns the social media website, X’s monthly users were down 15% and advertising revenue was 54% lower. More recent analysis found that users were still fleeing the platform in droves at the start of the new year. In February, monthly users were down 24% Year after year.
Some of these declines can be attributed to Musk’s own decline. behaviorthat users and advertisers found it off-putting. At the same time, X faced an increasingly degraded user experience. robots, many of which promote sexual content, are more prevalent on the site. These automated accounts often leave the same sexually suggestive replies on messages all over X. Bots have become so common on the site, they have become a defining element of the platform. Now, these bots could end up being drowned out by authentic human accounts promoting the same type of racy content that’s typically relegated to the seedier corners of the internet.
