X Is Taking A Slightly Different Approach To Managing Click Bait Content – Will It Work?

X seems to be reworking how it pays creators, and it is only putting money behind original posts to get rid of recycled posts.

“For this creator payout cycle, we’re experimenting with new tools to identify original authors of content and allocating a portion of revenue to them.

“Over the last few months, we’ve seen incredible work from original creators on X. Nick Shirley uncovered billions of dollars of fraud in hospice care. Charles Curran parodied global events with studio-quality videos. Will Manidis earned acclaim for his insightful articles on technology and AI.

“Reposts & commentary will always be a core pillar of X, but our Revenue Sharing program should incentivise original, high-quality content that brings new value to the Timeline. This means rewarding the effort it takes to produce something, not just the poster who helped it travel furthest.

“This is how we build a richer Timeline and how X continues to be the most valuable platform in the world. The Revenue Sharing program will continue to evolve to encourage creators to post their best content to X.”

That post from Nikita Bier, head of product at X, came as the platform cut payouts for accounts that post high volumes of clickbait and aggregated news.

What Is Changing In The Payout System?

Under X’s revenue sharing programme, creators can earn a share of advertising income if they have at least 500 verified followers and generate 5m views over three months, according to The Guardian.

Bier wrote that all aggregators had their payouts reduced to 60% in the latest cycle. He added that another 20% deduction will follow in the next cycle. “All aggregators had their payouts reduced to 60% this cycle. We will add another 20% deduction in the next cycle,” he wrote.

He explained why the company took this decision. “It became abundantly clear: flooding the timeline with 100 stolen reposts and clickbait every day crowded out real creators and hurt new authors’ growth.”

He also said that accounts which use “BREAKING” on nearly every post will face a permanent deduction. “X will never infringe on speech or reach, but we will not compensate for manipulation of the programme or our users,” he wrote.

The Guardian reported that the company warned users against flooding feeds with low quality material and recycling other people’s reporting.

Who Is Feeling The Impact From This Change?

The payout cuts came after complaints from right leaning influencers who said their monetisation had been paused. Newsweek reported that multiple conservative creators said they were demonetised without warning.

Accounts including Dom Lucre, Ethan Levins and American Citizen posted that they had been affected over alleged breaches of creator monetisation standards.

Dominick McGee, who posts as Dom Lucre and has 1.6m followers, wrote: “BREAKING: X just emailed me saying my creator monetisation is paused and I received now warning. I was the first creator demonetised on this platform and I was for an entire year. I got it back and just lost it without any insight. How could this be possible? I am one of the hardest working creators on X”.

Responding to Bier, McGee wrote that the platform appeared to be reacting to “the complaints of people that have no goal in creating on this app.” He accepted that calling every post breaking news could look like clickbait, but added, “I post hundreds of times and very few are BREAKING.”

Will Cutting Payouts Change Behaviour?

Money shapes incentives on any platform that pays creators. A 60% reduction, followed by another 20%, will alter how high volume repost accounts calculate their income.

X says it will not limit speech or reduce reach. Posts can circulate as before. What changes is who gets paid and how much. The company is signalling that writing original reporting, producing videos or publishing in depth analysis will be rewarded more generously than copying headlines at speed.

There is also the conversations around the platform’s direction. Data analyst Nate Silver wrote that it has become harder to send traffic from X to external websites and criticised what he described as the dominance of right leaning accounts. “I suppose I had some intuition for how bad it was, but jeez, this is what you get when the ecosystem is broken,” he wrote.

If original creators earn more and feel less crowded out, the new structure could reshape posting habits. If high volume accounts accept lower payouts and continue as before, little will change. The next payout cycles will show whether creators adapt or absorb the loss as a cost of doing business.