• by Colin Kirkland , June 3, 2024

Over the weekend, X, after recently replacing the twitter.com URL to X.com, updated its terms of service to become the first major social media platform to include clauses allowing users to post and share adult content in the app. 

The platform’s updated guidelines let users officially “share consensually produced and distributed adult nudity or sexual behavior, provided it's properly labeled and not prominently displayed, such as a banner or profile image.”

This includes, full or partial nudity, “including close-ups of genitals, buttocks, or breasts; explicit or implied sexual behavior or simulated acts such as sexual intercourse and other sexual acts.” The company doesn’t allow non-consensual nudity, the solicitation of sexual services, child sexual exploitation, violent sexual conduct, unwanted graphic objectification, or bestiality and necrophilia.

X says it believes users should be able to create, distribute, and consume material related to sexual themes, as “sexual expression, visual or written, can be a legitimate form of artistic expression.”

The company goes on to state that it believes in the “autonomy of adults” to create and engage with adult content, adding that X is balancing “this freedom by restricting exposure to Adult Content for children or adult users who choose not to see it.”

The new rules also cover AI-generated videos and images, including photographic or animated content such as “cartoons, hentai, or anime.”

As X owner Elon Musk continues to push the platform to become “video-first,” striking content deals with a variety of entertainment brands and publishers, it’s likely that the social messaging service may use these new terms to usher in a broader range of in-app partnerships.

This could include NSFW (not suitable for work) content, which has been prevalent on X for years. The platform has always been a hub for sex workers, adult-content bots and spam. Internal documents obtained by Reuters in 2022 show that roughly 13% of all posts on the platform, then known as Twitter, included NSFW content.

Since Musk’s takeover, porn bots have reportedly overrun the platform, while the company has made it possible for NSFW-focused in-app Communities to label themselves as NSFW so their content isn’t filtered automatically like other Communities.

By inviting the option for adult-content partnerships, X may have the ability to increase its revenue stream. However, the move could also act as a double-edged sword, scaring away more advertisers while attracting even more attention from regulators, especially if the app struggled to crack down on bad actors.