How X’s Weak Rules Give Predators Easy Access to Children

The FBI has issued a stark warning: online sextortion cases are surging, with hundreds of thousands of teens — especially boys — being targeted. Predators are using social media platforms as hunting grounds, exploiting weak safeguards to groom, manipulate, and extort children. And X is making their job dangerously easy.

Unlike most major platforms, X openly allows sexually explicit content like pornography. That alone makes it a magnet for bad actors. But what’s even more alarming is how easily minors can join. All that’s required is a typed-in birthdate. No ID verification. No meaningful barrier. With this simple loophole, children can create accounts, access explicit material, and — most troubling — be found by predators who know exactly where to look.

The combination of open pornography and no real age checks creates a perfect storm. Minors are exposed to harmful material at the very moment predators are given direct access to them in unmoderated spaces. The results can be devastating: children manipulated into sharing explicit photos, teens blackmailed for money, and in too many cases, lives shattered by online exploitation. 

This is not a problem without solutions. Stronger verification systems exist. Other platforms manage to ban or strictly limit explicit content. But X has chosen not to act because doing so would cut into engagement and profitability. Explicit material boosts user activity, helps sell Premium subscriptions, and sets X apart from rivals that prohibit such content — benefits the company appears unwilling to sacrifice, even at the cost of children’s safety.