Twitter pulled out of “OnlyFans-style service” over child safety fears

Twitter scrapped a feature to monetise adult content on the platform due to inadequate tools to detect content featuring child sexual abuse.

Twitter was set to launch on an OnlyFans-like feature for adult creators to make money on the platform.

That’s not a stretch considering Twitter is already one of the key platforms used by adult creators to advertise their OnlyFans accounts. The tech giant is one of the only major platforms were posting porn is allowed.

Last year, Twitter tried to take on OnlyFans with ‘Super Follows’ that let users pay celebrities for tweets. When it decided to go a step further and launch a feature that would allow adult content creators to sell paid subscriptions, an internal report brought it to a grinding halt.

An April report that tested the new project called Adult Content Monetization (ACM) found that Twitter could not effectively handle harmful sexual content on the platform.

An investigation by The Verge, based on leaked documents and interviews with employees, revealed that Twitter had assembled an 84-person ‘Red Team’ in April to ‘pressure-test the decision to allow adult creators to monetize on the platform, by specifically focusing on what it would look like for Twitter to do this safely and responsibly’.

‘Twitter cannot accurately detect child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity at scale,’ the Red Team concluded.

The project revealed flaws in Twitters existing handling of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) content.

This was not news to executives as a report from the previous year confirmed the same. Being less profitable than bigger social media rivals like Meta, Twitter has invested far less in content moderation and user safety.

‘While the amount of CSE online has grown exponentially, Twitter’s investment in technologies to detect and manage the growth has not,’ said the report.

Twitter is currently embroiled in a legal battle with Elon Musk

Due to a lack of resources prioritising tools to detect CSE, content moderators remain the only line of defence, making it flimsy at best.

‘Twitter has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation,’ a Twitter spokesperson said.

‘We aggressively fight online child sexual abuse and have invested significantly in technology and tools to enforce our policy. Our dedicated teams work to stay ahead of bad-faith actors and to help ensure we’re protecting minors from harm — both on and offline,’

As of August, the team responsible for developing the Adult Content Monetization feature has been reorganised and combined with a team tasked with identifying spam accounts.

With plans for monetising adult content canned, Twitter is focusing on other features like ‘Circle’ to get users to stay on the platform.

The new feature comes at a time when the company is dealing with whistleblower complaints, a staff exodus and a legal battle with Elon Musk to honour his agreement to buy Twitter in a $44 billion deal.

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