X, formerly known as Twitter, has said it will now allow users to share consensual “adult nudity or sexual behaviour”. 

The platform added its Adult Content policy page at the weekend to allow sharing of sexual content when it is “properly labelled and not prominently displayed”. 

“Users should be able to create, distribute, and consume material related to sexual themes as long as it is consensually produced and distributed,” the policy update said. 

“Sexual expression, whether visual or written, can be a legitimate form of artistic expression.” 

X will define adult content as “any consensually produced and distributed material depicting adult nudity or sexual behaviour that is pornographic or intended to cause sexual arousal”. 

It specifically noted this will include AI-generated content and cartoons. 

Reporting content on X

The policy update advised users sharing sexual content to adjust their settings to flag they produce ‘sensitive’ material. 

Photos and videos from a flagged user will have a content warning that needs to be acknowledged before the media can be viewed. 

Users under 18 or viewers who do not include a birth date on their profile cannot click to view marked content. 

According to X, people who do not mark their sexual material will have their settings adjusted by X but will not be removed from the platform. 

Anyone can report unmarked explicit content shared on X under the current platform reporting process. 

Explicit content online

Twitter never had a formal policy allowing or banning sexual content on its platform, nor did X before this policy update. 

This new update on adult content comes following months of growing issues with ‘porn bots’ that comment under posts inviting people to their accounts. 

The posts, which typically have messages such as ‘Hot link in bio’ capitalised and spaced out, quickly became a humourous trend as more spam accounts were being created than could be dealt with. 

In March, X reported that users have dropped by a quarter since Tesla owner Elon Musk bought the platform and rebranded it.