Elon Musk turned Twitter into X—now he’s turning X into XXX

Over the weekend X (formerly Twitter) changed its terms of service to formally allow users to post adult content. Prior to the rule change, the platform had an unofficial policy that allowed users to upload such content, but it was neither allowed nor banned, operating in a gray area. Now, X users will be able to freely post NSFW content, so long as it was made consensually. 

“We believe in the autonomy of adults to engage with and create content that reflects their own beliefs, desires, and experiences, including those related to sexuality,” X’s updated guidelines state.

Anyone who posts adult content will have to label it as such on their account to ensure X’s filters place a warning in front of it. X’s new guidelines extend to AI-generated nude content. 

While X never explicitly allowed adult content, there was an increase in such content after the launch of the Twitter Blue subscription program. The new paid tier of X allowed sex workers and porn actors to charge subscribers a fee for content that was behind a paywall, similar to how performers monetize content on social platform OnlyFans. Now, with the official rule change it appears X is emulating OnlyFans’ effort to build stronger commercial relationships between creators and users who subscribe to their accounts. Despite a reputation as a haven for pornography—which is certainly prevalent on the site—OnlyFans has been trying to position itself as a platform where content creators of any kind can build closer ties to paying customers. 

Since Elon Musk bought X in October 2022, he has been vocal that the company needs to chase subscription revenue in order to diversify its income streams. That belief was the impetus for the Twitter Blue launch, now known as X Premium, an early version of a porn-friendly X. However, those earlier plans fell apart in the spring of 2022 when X’s content moderation teams realized they didn’t have the capabilities to adequately screen for child sexual assault material and other forms of illegal sexually explicit content, according to reporting from The Verge. As a result, the plans were put on hold. 

Musk has major ambitions for X’s subscription business. In a pitch deck presented to investors, Musk proposed reducing Twitter’s (as it was known then) advertising business from 90% of its revenue to just 45% by 2028. That would mean subscription revenue would rise to $10 billion a year by that date. That number 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 along the benchmarks Musk set. 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 into Musk’s ownership of the social media website, X’s monthly users were down 15% and advertising revenue was 54% lower. A more recent analysis found users were still fleeing the platform in droves into the new year. In February monthly users were down 24% year over year. 

Some of those declines can be attributed to Musk’s own behavior, which both users and advertisers have found off-putting. At the same time, X has been plagued by a worsening user experience as bots, many of which promote sexual content, are more prevalent on the site. These automated accounts often leave the same sexually suggestive replies on posts all across X. The bots have become so common on the site they’ve become a defining feature of the platform. Now those bots may wind up being drowned out by authentic human accounts promoting the same sort of racy content that is usually relegated to seedier corners of the internet.