“Don’t go see my last Twitter post”. Under a publication of the very influential Gims, followed by 3 million subscribers, a tweet stands out. The message is mysterious and the exhaustive emojis used intriguing. An eggplant here, an “under 18” sign there. It is posted by a certain “AD”, better known to the general public as Adrien Laurent, a former reality TV candidate. From “Princes of Love”, to “Angels of reality TV” via “The Villa of Broken Hearts”, the 29-year-old young man has established himself over the seasons as the seducer with imposing muscles. Now far from this world, Adrien Laurent has finally decided to get into pornography. “I found my professional retraining according to you? “, he launches in a first tweet published on November 28, 2021. “You have potential go dark AD”, “I think you will be good brother”, answer him very quickly his subscribers, visibly very interested in future content .
If the question is shared on Twitter, it is not trivial. For Adrien Laurent as for many creators of porn content, the platform facilitates the distribution of this content. For more than two years, the former reality TV contestant followed now followed by 59,000 people publish daily images and videos of him naked, sometimes fully erect, sometimes masturbating or performing cunnilingus to another porn actress. Without any censorship, Adrien Laurent can therefore take advantage of Twitter as a showcase for its subscribers to access its paid content, in particular on Mym, the social network which aims to be “exclusive” and which above all allows many porn actors to sell their content. For Adrien Laurent, who did not respond to our requests, we have to believe that business is going well. In an interview given to Gossip Roomthe former reality TV star admitted to earning between 30,000 and 40,000 euros in good months.
Unlimited porn
If on Mym, these contents remain very closed, on Twitter, the logic is different. The platform now owned by Elon Musk makes this type of content ultra-accessible, even though the public does not necessarily consent to it. Indeed, most users would come more to get information or entertainment, without necessarily knowing that pornographic content is circulating there.
In reality, the reason for this predominance of porn content lies above all in the great libertarian ambition of Twitter, and this well before the arrival of the American billionaire. In its regulations, the social network prohibits, for example, the publication of excessively bloody media, violent content or images of sexual assault. But nothing is really defined about pornographic content, unlike Meta which owns Facebook and Instagram and where nudity has no place. Adrien Laurent, for example, saw his Instagram account suspended for more than a year before being able to recreate another one. Same on Snapchat.
In its great ambition to compete with porn platforms, Twitter wanted to go even further. According to the American media The Verge, the social network had even considered monetizing the sexual content already present on the platform. But the project named “Adult content monetization” had finally been abandoned because it was on the one hand too difficult to control and on the other hand a risk of massive losses in the face of cautious advertisers.
A young audience with little protection
Today, it remains very difficult to know how much pornographic content is circulating on the platform. With the new rules envisaged by Elon Musk, reading the data has been completely inaccessible to the public, as a developer from our editorial staff explains. Twitter also remains closed to discussion with the media. In the email we sent them to ask them about the subject, an automatic email was given to us with a single poo emoji in its content.
Worse still, the social network does not seem to protect children from this pornographic content. For the purposes of the investigation, we become “Armand Plume”, a 16-year-old young man, passionate about video games and Disney films. If the numerical majority was well respected [15 ans en France], it only took one click in the account preferences to access all of Adrien Laurent’s content, and much worse. Without any filter, we come across both videos of sadomasochistic couples, sex toys, but also images of zoophilia where we see a man masturbating a dog.
A showcase before paid content
But then why choose Twitter and not go directly to a site reserved for pornographic content? For most content creators, the social network with the blue bird serves above all as a showcase to offer their subscribers free content and why not encourage them to pay them via another platform, such as Mym or OnlyFans. This is the case of BlaccBarbie, creator of X content for a year now and followed by nearly 900 subscribers on Twitter.
Motivated by the fact of “earning easy money” by posting sexy photos, the young designer now earns as much thanks to her content as thanks to her main activity. “On Twitter, I post promotional content that will help my followers get to my Mym.” On his account, some intimate content will be blurred, others will not. “Initially, I didn’t really want to show my private parts on Twitter, because it’s free so that’s not the point, so I blur them. If I don’t do it, it’s really to do a little boost, that it takes a little and that it turns into paid subscribers, ”she tells us. And the promotion seems to be working for the designer who just got started. According to her, 75% of the people who follow her on Mym are followers from Twitter.
“Zero porn for our children”
But the rules are set to change with the arrival in August of the European Digital Services Act (DSA) directive. While Twitter is now fairly free and can ignore regulations outside of US soil, the new text is likely to be a game-changer for major platforms. The seventeen concerned – including Twitter – will have to be stricter in particular on the moderation of illegal content, messages inciting hatred and counterfeit products on market places, but also on pornographic content. In addition to this regulation, the bill for Internet Security and Regulation voted on July 5 and carried by the Minister for the Digital Transition and Telecommunications Jean-Noël Barrot.
“My answer is simple: zero porn for our children”, insists the minister when we ask him about Twitter and its great laxity in the face of X content. “It is out of the question that there is exposure to porn, and even less that it be monetized”. The latter therefore relies above all on age verification, which will in future be based on a principle of double anonymity. “This takes the form of an application that will request anonymous proof of majority from a digital identity provider. This anonymous proof of majority is stored on the app and is requested by adult sites when the user tries to access them. The adult site does not know the identity of the user and whoever provided the anonymous proof of majority does not know what it was used for.” Also, the text provides for the de-referencing of pornographic sites that do not verify the age of users on search engines. And Twitter will not escape the rule either.
But especially if the social network continues to ignore European rules, the DSA provides for fines of up to 6% of turnover. “Around 300 million euros for Twitter”, calculates the minister. In the event of a repeat offence, the social network could even be banned from the European Union. So for content creators, there will undoubtedly be an impact on their activities, and in fact on their income. “I especially just hope that it will not penalize people who want to have access to pornographic content, but I agree on the principle of making Twitter safer for everyone,” admits BlaccBarbie.
To find out more on the subject, the video survey is at the top of the article.