Will Musk's 'Paywall Video' Turn Twitter into Another OnlyFans?
Self-described "free speech absolutist" Elon Musk, who recently bought Twitter for $44 billion, is set to usher paid content to the platform, including a "Paywalled Video," according to the Washington Post. The platform would allow users to charge to view content, and profit by taking a share of the fee for itself.
Rolling Stone cut right to the chase, noting that Paywalled Video "could be used for all sorts of things, but let's be real here, it'd probably mostly be porn."
It's currently easy to view hardcore pornographic content on Twitter for free, but, Rolling Stone noted, "The possible 'paywalled video' feature at Twitter seems to have the markings of a classic Musk scheme: less CEO-savant maneuvering and more, 'hey, look at OnlyFans, how can we get a piece of that action?'"
Reporting on an "internal email" about the proposed service, the Post noted that "the team has 'identified the risk as high,' according to the email, which was sent by an employee on Twitter's Product Trust team."
"The email cites 'risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance,'" the Post detailed
But, the article added, that may not give Musk much (if any) pause when it comes to introducing new paid features to the platform. "While Twitter makes most of its money from advertising, Musk has said he wants to charge users, including for the blue check mark of verification," the article said.
Even as Twitter may be poised to allow users to charge for video content, another digital institution seems ready to surrender its previous stance around explicit visuals.
"Tumblr, the micro-blogging site that looked like it might dominate the internet in the mid-2010s (spoiler alert: it didn't), announced on Tuesday, Nov. 1, that it had reversed an infamous 2018 decision to censor all nudity on the platform," Rolling Stone detailed.
Even so, Tumblr is "encouraging posters to tag content with 'nudity, mature subject matter, or sexual themes' with the appropriate community label," Rolling Stone specified. "More importantly, 'visual depictions of sexually explicit acts' are still banned."
Rolling Stone said that the concerns outlined by the Twitter team would be subject to "an internal review — but with the effort to roll out the feature as fast as possible, the team responsible for the review will reportedly only have three days to provide feedback. What could possibly go wrong with that?"