The X algorithm playbook for adult creators, kept current

This is my working playbook for growing on X as an adult creator, built from the ranking code X publishes and re-checked every month. Last checked against X's code: October 26, 2026 (the version X published on October 24). Last updated: November 6, 2026. When something changes, I update this page and log it at the bottom.

Two things up front. The numbers below are the defaults in X's code, and what X runs in production can differ. And most of this comes from reading the code. The one real result is my own account, further down: I'm still on one account, and the two-account setup below is where I'm heading, not something I've tested yet.

How does X decide who sees your post?

Each time someone opens For You, X gathers posts from accounts they follow and from recommendation sources, trims that pile to 2,800, and scores what's left. The score adds up how likely the viewer is to take each action on your post, multiplied by that action's weight. Posts older than 48 hours drop out of the main For You pipeline.

Two details are easy to miss:

• Non-followers get a stricter safety check than followers. Your followers can see posts that never reach strangers.
• Since October 22, the trim is proportional. Every source keeps the same share of its posts, so fresh posts aren't squeezed out first.

What counts most in X's ranking?

Actions that take effort count most. A like is cheap, a profile click counts for nothing, and the negatives are huge. These are the default weights:

One report undoes hundreds of likes. For an adult account that matters most: a post that makes strangers mute or report you can cost more than several good posts earn. Time spent reading also counts, and its weight went up 50% in October.

How do small accounts get discovered on X?

Through a boost for fresh posts from small accounts. One original post from an account with 50,000 followers or fewer can be lifted to around 16th place in someone's feed. It only qualifies while it's 2 hours old or less with under 200 views, and replies and reposts never qualify.

Among the posts that qualify, X favors the ones whose first viewers liked them most. So the first two hours are the window that counts. Post when your followers are online, and be around to answer replies.

Why do quotes beat reposts on X?

Because a quote reaches new people and a repost mostly doesn't. One filter drops reposts and replies from the feeds of people who don't follow the account that posted them. Quotes aren't dropped: a quote is the quoter's own post, so it can reach their audience, and it can qualify for the small-account boost too.

So when you want help spreading a post, ask for quotes. And write posts people can add to: a number, a claim they can test, a before-and-after, a take they'd argue with. "New scene out now" gives nobody anything to say.

The co-star brief I'm starting with on my next release is four lines: here's what's new, here's the angle I think your followers would care about, here's the proof, quote it in your own words within the first two hours. Never a shared paragraph: recycled wording can get tagged as spam.

What happens to adult content on X?

Adult content is handled at two levels: the post and the account.

Posts. X's own descriptions of its adult labels are blunt: a labeled post is hidden from recommendations to non-followers, and from underage users, users without a stated age and logged-out users. So adult posts mostly don't get recommended beyond people who already follow you. Once a post reaches 64 likes, X's spam checks scan its videos for adult content, with a deeper check at 512.

Accounts. Since August, X has rules that look at the labels on your recent posts, over a window of up to 10, and can put an NSFW label on the whole account for up to 7 days. The rules can be set to count only posts with media. The exact thresholds are in config X didn't publish, so nobody outside X can tell you the real number.

What an account label costs. In X's words, "the account's posts are hidden from recommendations to non-followers." All of them, not just the adult ones, for as long as the label lasts. The description only covers non-followers, so followers should still see you.

Brand safety. Since August 24, adult labels sit in X's highest brand-safety risk tier. Anything X's classifier hasn't scored defaults to medium risk, so leaving a post unlabeled doesn't help. In the code, brand safety mostly decides where ads can appear, not your reach.

X's rules ask you to mark sensitive media. Do it. Just don't expect the mark to protect the account: the account rules count X's labels, and whether your own mark feeds them isn't visible in the code.

Which labels can X put on your posts and account?

X publishes the full list, with a plain description of each, in the same repository as its ranking code. These are the ones that matter for adult creators.

Three things in that list catch people out. Explicit text gets labeled too, so "text posts are safe" only holds for text that's actually clean. Your profile picture or banner can label the whole account by itself. And user reports can escalate an account to the heaviest label in the list, which adds a content warning to its posts.

What happened to my own account?

X now gives eligible accounts a monthly report, called Under the Hood, listing the labels it applied. Mine for September 2026 says:

• Roughly 5% to 10% of my posts that month got adult labels (two kinds, and the report doesn't say whether they overlap).
• My whole account carried the "NSFW high precision" label for 7 of the month's 30 days. On those days, by X's description, none of my posts were recommended to anyone who doesn't follow me.

That's what X's report shows for my account. I can't say the post labels caused the account label, because X doesn't publish the thresholds, but the timing fits the rules above. And it wasn't a feed full of explicit posts: only a small share of mine were labeled.

You can pull your own report at x.com/i/under_the_hood. X's stated eligibility is an account at least a year old with 10 or more posts in the previous month. It covers the previous month, not today, and it doesn't say which post got which label. It's still the only way I know of to see what X did to your account.

Why use two accounts?

Because one account is a bad fit for both jobs: growing and selling explicit content. My September report is consistent with that. The account that reaches strangers can be labeled on the strength of its recent posts, so I'd keep it clean of adult media, and let any label land on the account where it costs little. The account that sells can post whatever its followers signed up for, because it was never going to be discovered by strangers anyway.

I laid out the full setup, with swipe copy, in X published its algorithm. The code says you need two accounts, not one. The short version: a clean discovery account with a text pointer in the bio and one pinned bridge post, cross-promotion rationed hard, and my own site as the bridge X can't take away.

How often should you post on X?

I'd aim for one to three posts a day, spaced out. That's my rule of thumb, not a number from the code. Your second post in the same feed is worth about 62% of the first, so bursts compete with each other. Each post's boost window is its first two hours, and For You is done with it after 48. Posting less often doesn't help: every post you skip is a two-hour window you don't get.

Text posts can earn everything that scores. Video views score close to zero, and opening a photo scores 0.05. A video has to earn replies, quotes or shares like any other post, and it needs to run at least 10 seconds to count for video surfaces at all.

What else kills reach on X?

• Mutes, reports and "not interested." See the table: these are the heaviest weights in the system.
• Reply spam. X screens low-follower accounts that spray replies under big threads. Reply when you have something to add.
• Recycled wording. Posting the same text over and over can get tagged as spam.
• Low-quality labels. A post labeled low quality shows non-followers a warning and limits what they can do on it.
• Links in the main post. Opening a link scores 0.2, and the post should be earning quotes and shares instead. Put links in the first reply or your bio.

What's changed recently?

Newest first. I check X's code monthly and add anything that changes the playbook.

• November 5, 2026: likes went from 0.66 to 0.708.

• October 2026: X's Under the Hood report now also shows posts limited or withheld to comply with a country's law, and which country. I added my own September report to this page.

• October 22, 2026: the pre-scoring trim became proportional across sources. A filter that would hide soft-NSFW posts from viewers whose accounts are under a day old was added, switched off by default.

• October 13–14, 2026: likes went from 0.5 to 0.66, time spent up 50%, "not interested" from -47.52 to -52.27, opening a video from 0.07 to 0.02.

• September 30, 2026: the small-account boost was rewritten, from posts up to 48 hours old with 1,000 views to 2 hours and 200 views, for accounts up to 50,000 followers.

• August 24, 2026: adult labels moved to the highest brand-safety risk tier.

• August 13, 2026: account-level NSFW labels, plus a filter that drops labeled accounts from one recommendation source. X's own description of the label is broader: hidden from recommendations to non-followers.

The October changes in more depth: what changed in X's algorithm in October 2026.

— Sly