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X Is Cracking Down on Accounts That Rip Off the Work of Photographers and Other Creators
X is shifting impressions and payouts to original posters, with repeat offenders seeing creator revenue cut by as much as 90%, Bier said.
On Saturday, Elon Musk's social media platform X began cracking down on large accounts "programmatically reuploading content from smaller accounts" to game its creator revenue-share program, with head of product Nikita Bier announcing the platform will redirect impressions to original creators.
When X started paying creators primarily through impressions and engagement, verified accounts discovered they could earn thousands by downloading trending videos before original creators gained traction, leaving smaller creators without credit or earnings.
Mario Nawfal, CEO of IBC Group with 3.5 million followers, was singled out Saturday after reposting an ABC News journalist's White House video without proper attribution; repeat offenders saw revenue slashed by 90 percent.
Bier instructed creators to use X's "Share Video" or "Quote" features instead of reuploading to ensure attribution reaches original creators, with the platform now automatically allocating impressions to original posters rather than aggregators.
The initiative aims to improve data quality for X's Grok chatbot and xAI projects while incentivizing original creation, though impact remains uncertain given only 20% of X users post anything and aggregators currently drive significant engagement.