X formally changes rules to allow porn as Elon Musk risks new row with regulators

The social media platform had tolerated adult content for years. However, a new rule change at Elon Musk’s company says that users may now officially post “consensually produced and distributed material depicting adult nudity or sexual behaviour that is pornographic or intended to cause sexual arousal”. This, it adds, may include “AI-generated, photographic or animated content such as cartoons, hentai, or anime”.

X’s commercial performance has crashed since Mr Musk took over in 2022, with a majority of advertisers fleeing the platform due to hateful or racist content that the company has been slow to remove.

By contrast, services such as Instagram and TikTok, which agave stricter content moderation rules, have shown sharp growth in commercial revenue from ads.

Adult content has a long track record of being profitable, with sites such as OnlyFans and Pornhub becoming household names as significant online niches.

Earlier this year, X was reportedly testing new ‘adult content communities’ for its platform, allowing people to share and consume pornography in groups.

X’s new rules include a request to adult content creators to adjust their media settings so that explicitly images and videos appear behind a content warning.

It also says that users of X who list their birthdate as being under 18, or who do not list any birthdate, will not be able to see the pornography.

However, the new move into pornography is unlikely to improve X’s relationship with internet regulators, with Mr Musk’s company already facing serious investigations over content it hosts in the EU and Australia.

In Europe, Meta is already under formal investigation by the European Commission over how carefully it protects children, including its age verification systems.