X is testing NSFW adult communities, according to screenshots

X resides as much as its title. The platform, previously Twitter, is engaged on an addition to its Communities characteristic that might let X customers create teams for X-rated materials, based on app researchers.

Researcher Daniel Buchuk of Watchful, which analyzes app improvement and efficiency, discovered the characteristic by means of reverse engineering the app. He shared screenshots with TechCrunch solely, which present what X’s NSFW Communities might appear like.

Picture Credit: Watchful (opens in a new window)

An unbiased researcher, Nima Owji, additionally noticed the characteristic in improvement final month.

Twitter introduced its Communities feature in 2021. It permits customers to put up inside smaller, interest-based subgroups, like a subreddit. When Elon Musk bought Twitter final yr, he enacted sweeping modifications to the app’s brand identity, verification systems and creator monetization efforts — however some options, like Communities, remained stagnant.

X additionally hasn’t taken a lot initiative in working with its sizable population of online sex workers, who flip to the platform — one in every of few that permits grownup content material — to advertise their paid choices from websites like OnlyFans.

“Twitter actually is the primary advertising venue at this point for sex workers,” Dr. Olivia Snow, a dominatrix and researcher at UCLA’s Heart for Essential Web Inquiry, informed TechCrunch final yr. So, the platform’s more-lenient coverage on grownup content material is vital for on-line intercourse employees to develop their companies.

X didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Grownup creators are allowed to put up specific content material on X, although they will’t monetize it on the platform. But when they will create their very own fan communities, this characteristic might give creators a extra direct technique to attain their viewers.

Regardless that X appears to be engaged on this NSFW Communities characteristic, that doesn’t imply it’ll come to fruition. Shortly after Musk took management of the platform, reverse engineers uncovered potential options that might permit creators to monetize paywalled movies or cost cash for DMs. These mockups regarded just like options on OnlyFans, which could possibly be a method for Musk to recoup his $44 billion funding: monetizing “X videos.”

However because it stands, X doesn’t appear poised to reverse its stance on grownup content material monetization. Even earlier than Musk’s takeover, Twitter had been engaged on an OnlyFans competitor, but it surely was shelved as a result of Twitter couldn’t adequately detect non-consensual content material and little one sexual exploitation (CSE). However X says it’s mitigating that dire downside. Based on X CEO Linda Yaccarino, in 2023 the platform suspended 12.4 million accounts for violating little one sexual exploitation insurance policies, up from 2.3 million accounts eliminated in 2022.