X is demonstrating its commitment to diversifying its offerings. The platform, formerly Twitter, is actively exploring enhancements to its Communities feature, including the possibility of allowing users to create groups for adult content, according to app researchers.
Researcher Daniel Buchuk of Watchful, a company specializing in app development and performance analysis, recently uncovered this development. He provided exclusive screenshots to TechCrunch, offering a glimpse into what X's NSFW Communities could entail.
Additionally, independent researcher Nima Owji also noted the feature in development last month.
Introduced in 2021, Twitter's Communities feature enables users to engage within smaller, interest-based communities akin to subreddits. Despite significant changes to the platform following Elon Musk's acquisition in 2022, features like Communities have remained relatively unchanged.
However, X has yet to fully tap into its substantial population of online adult content creators, who utilize the platform — one of the few permitting such content — to promote their services from platforms like OnlyFans.
“Twitter really is the primary advertising venue at this point for sex workers,” remarked Dr. Olivia Snow, a dominatrix and researcher at UCLA's Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, in an interview with TechCrunch last year. Thus, the platform's accommodating stance toward adult content is crucial for these professionals to sustain and expand their businesses.
Despite requests for comment, X did not respond.
While adult creators can share explicit content on X, they currently cannot monetize it directly on the platform. However, the potential introduction of fan communities could offer creators a more direct avenue to connect with their audience.
It's worth noting that while X appears to be exploring the NSFW Communities feature, its implementation is not guaranteed. Following Musk's assumption of control, reverse engineers uncovered potential features resembling those of OnlyFans, suggesting a possible strategy to monetize "X videos" and recoup Musk's substantial investment.
Nevertheless, X's stance on adult content monetization doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon. Even prior to Musk's involvement, Twitter had considered developing an OnlyFans competitor, although concerns regarding content moderation, particularly related to non-consensual content and child sexual exploitation, posed significant challenges. However, X claims to be addressing this issue actively. According to X CEO Linda Yaccarino, the platform removed 12.4 million accounts for violating child sexual exploitation policies in 2023, a significant increase from the 2.3 million removed in 2022.