You could say X is putting an end to the kind of economy that has been siphoning off money from the people who made the content in the first place. Nikita Bier, head of product at X, has put out a new plan: when it comes to revenue-sharing, we’re going to be looking at the one who started the viral video, not whoever was quickest to reupload it.
What X changed and why
It’s no secret some users have been vocal about this for a while. They’ve seen big accounts with the power to reupload a clip in a matter of minutes and walk away with the engagement and the pay, while the original post is left in the dust. According to Bier, X has zeroed in on a few of these large accounts that were ‘programmatically reuploading’ from smaller ones to work the system.
This is where you get to the root of the issue. X will now be on top of those kinds of reposts and, as they put it, ‘allocating the impressions entirely to the creator.’ In short, the original gets the credit for the reach, and the old way of doing things is done for.
Impact on repost and aggregation accounts
We are seeing a hard turn toward the original and away from the engagement farms. If you run an aggregation page that has made its living on quick reposts, you can expect to see your visibility and your payout dwindle as the numbers go back to where they came from.
Bier puts it down to a matter of attribution, but the message is plain: X is not in the business of paying out to accounts that live off other people’s labour. Value is being put back in the hands of the ones who set the trends.
Here is what it means for the time being:
– You’ll see the bulk of the monetisable action on the original
– A strategy of just reposting won’t get you anywhere
– Being fast with a reupload doesn’t trump the source any more
Commentary stays, but attribution is enforced
Don’t get it twisted – X isn’t after your commentary, reactions or memes. They want you to use the tools in the app to add to a post in a way that gives credit where it’s due, as opposed to the manual download and reupload method that erases it.
‘If you have something to say about a post, we’d point you to the Share Video or Quote feature so it’s all in order,’ says Bier.
How impressions will split
There is room for substance. ‘We encourage commentary and it will have its share of impressions,’ Bier explains. ‘But the original is always going to have the lion’s share.’ Any programmatic reupload, on the other hand, is handed over to the creator in full.
That’s the crux of it. Put some thought into a post and you can have a piece of the reach. Try to repackage someone else’s work for the views and you’re out of the picture.
Product issues and next steps
Some have run into a hiccup with Share Video: if a post is over 280 characters, the video turns into a link. Bier has called it what it is – a bug – and said it’s on the way to being fixed. It’s a necessary fix if they want to make the right tool the easy one.
All of this is part of a larger push to make sure the money follows the originality. X is clamping down on a system that used to be happy to reward duplication in spades.
Why this matters for X’s positioning
Trust is everything in the creator economy. X is making a play to show they can be the place where you put your content up first, without worrying you’ll be left behind by some imitator.
For the rest of us, you may find the feed is less of a carbon-copy of the same posts and more of the real thing with some good commentary. For the creators, the rules are simple: be first, be proper, and let the platform do its job of getting you paid.
