Elon Musk’s X Updates Guidelines To Officially Allow Porn

Elon Musk‘s X (fka Twitter) is now formally allowing users to post adult and graphic content on the platform, with some restrictions. The platform has never restricted or banned adult content, but updated rules announced over the weekend reveal new caveats. Musk has previously hosted adult content with NSFW (not safe for work) communities.

“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 Adult Content page reads. “We balance this freedom by restricting exposure to Adult Content for children or adult users who choose not to see it. We also prohibit content promoting exploitation, nonconsent, objectification, sexualization or harm to minors, and obscene behaviors,” the page continues. “We also do not allow sharing Adult Content in highly visible places such as profile photos or banners.”

X defines “adult content” as any “consensually produced and distributed material depicting adult nudity or sexual behavior that is pornographic or intended to cause sexual arousal.” This also applies to AI-generated, photographic or animated content such as cartoons, hentai or anime. Examples include depictions of “full or partial nudity, including closeups of genitals, buttocks or breasts” and “explicit or implied sexual behavior or simulated acts such as sexual intercourse and other sexual acts,” X says.

In a statement to Deadline, a rep for X said: “We launched Adult Content and Violent Content policies — but what we enforce against has not changed – we launched these policies to clarify our Rules and increase transparency on our enforcement. These policies replace our former Sensitive Media and Violent Speech policies which means we continue to act on these types of content with the exact same philosophy.”

Before Musk took over Twitter in October 2023, Reuters reported the year previously that Twitter estimated adult content constituted 13% of posts on the platform.

According to the adult content policies, users who regularly post adult content are being asked to adjust their media settings that places all images and videos behind a content warning that needs to be acknowledged before it can be viewed. There also is an option of adding a one-time content warning on individual posts. According to the policies, failure to mark the posts will result in X adjusting the account settings for the user.