The Internet has been hosting all kinds of content for a long time, so it wasn't a surprise to anyone when people started tweeting porn to each other. X (formerly Twitter) has long had many active NSFW communities, and while the social network unofficially allowed people to post adult content, its rules have never outright banned or allowed such content.
That is now changing. Over the weekend, Users can now post consensually produced NSFW content, as long as it is prominently labeled as such. The new rules also cover AI-generated videos and images.
The rule change isn't a complete surprise, as X, under Elon Musk, has already experimented with formally hosting adult content with NSFW communities.
“We believe that users should be able to create, distribute and consume material relating to sexual themes, as long as it is produced and distributed in a consensual manner. Sexual expression, visual or written, can be a legitimate form of artistic expression,” said X Adult Content Policy is reading.
“We believe in the autonomy of adults to engage and create content that reflects their own beliefs, desires and experiences, including those related to sexuality. We balance this freedom by limiting exposure to adult content for children or adult users who choose not to see it,” the page says.
X's violent content rules also have similar guidelines, but X states that the content cannot be “excessively gory or depict sexual violence.” The platform continues to refuse content that explicitly threatens or incites/glorifies violence.
The company's reasoning for allowing graphic content is to let people participate in conversations about what's happening around them, and to include images and videos.
Through the social network, users can… messages contain sensitive mediaand does not allow users under the age of 18 or people who have not entered their date of birth in their profile to see such messages.
X has never actually banned porn, but these clauses could allow it to build services around adult content – think creating an OnlyFans competitor to boost its revenue.
About 13% of posts on the platform in 2022 contained adult content, according to a 2022 Reuters report that cited internal company documents. Adult content on X has seemingly increased since then, especially if pornbots are distributed on the platform.
Now that the social network is formally allowing adult content, regulators will no doubt be keeping a close eye on X and its efforts to ban non-consensual porn and child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Last October, Australia fined X for failing to provide information on child abuse, and around the same time, India did the same multiple social networks notifiedincluding X, to remove CSAM from their platforms.
