X’s Bot Purge Removed Secret Porn Feeds
▼ Summary
– X’s recent large-scale campaign to remove automated accounts has also suspended many human-operated “alt” accounts used for privately curating niche porn.
– The platform’s head of product stated the effort is flagging “208 bots per minute and growing,” targeting fake, inactive, or spam accounts.
– These private accounts, used for bookmarking or lurking, were likely flagged under a policy against inauthentic activity that undermines platform integrity.
– Users report losing years of curated content, with one describing the loss as a catastrophic personal archive deletion.
– This purge is part of an ongoing initiative, following a previous removal of 1.7 million bots, with the product team prioritizing improved spam detection systems.
A recent, aggressive campaign by X to remove automated and spam accounts has had a significant unintended consequence: the mass deletion of legitimate, private accounts used by people to discreetly follow adult content. The platform’s sweeping bot purge, which began escalating earlier this month, is targeting what it deems inauthentic activity but is also catching human-operated “alt” accounts in its wide net.
Celebrity news influencer Justin Diego, who maintains a large public following on other platforms, experienced this firsthand. He had operated a private X account since 2024 solely to bookmark content from his favorite creators. He never posted, using it only to curate a personal feed. Over the weekend, that account was suspended without explanation. For Diego, and many others, these private accounts served as a necessary space for personal interest, separate from their public online identities.
The scale of the automated removal is substantial. Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, posted on April 9 that the platform was flagging and suspending bots at a rate of “208 bots per minute and growing.” While the intent is to cleanse the platform of fake and spam accounts, the bulk enforcement appears to lack sufficient nuance. Accounts that simply repost content or lurk without posting are being flagged under policies against activity that undermines platform integrity, often because their behavior patterns can resemble automated engagement farming.
The human cost is a massive loss of personally curated archives. Users are reporting the sudden disappearance of accounts that represented years of careful collection. Tom Zohar, an actor, lamented the loss online, comparing it to a cultural catastrophe. The sentiment is echoed across the platform, where users mourn their “gooner accounts,” a slang term for these private, adult-content-focused alts.
This incident is not an isolated event but part of a broader, ongoing initiative at X. Last October, Bier’s team removed 1.7 million bots to combat reply spam. In the weeks leading up to this April purge, he noted that nearly half of the product team had pivoted to enhancing spam mitigation features and automated enforcement systems. The current wave of suspensions seems to be a direct result of those prioritized efforts, though the collateral damage highlights a critical flaw in the detection algorithms.
The core issue, as voiced by affected users, is a fundamental misunderstanding of human behavior. Creating a separate, quiet account to engage with niche interests is a common and very human practice. As Diego points out, the desire for a private space doesn’t make someone a bot, it reflects a basic need for personal curation and discretion. For now, the digital libraries many users spent years building are gone, casualties in a war against automation that failed to distinguish between spam and simple, private human activity.
(Source: Wired)
