X looks to improve its incentives for original creators

X continues to target aggregator accounts in an effort to ensure that original creators get the credit they deserve for their content, with X’s head of product Nikita Bier providing a new update on the platform’s efforts to redistribute revenue from its creator revenue share scheme to creators.

As per Bier: “Over the past month, we have identified a number of large accounts that have been programmatically reuploading content from smaller accounts to game the revenue share program and circumvent crediting the original author. We are now identifying these posts and allocating the impressions entirely to the creator.”

So rather than letting these bigger accounts game the system, and get the attribution for essentially stealing posts from other accounts, X is now actively penalizing aggregators, and giving the impressions that they would have racked up to the originators.

So like Robin Hood, but for impressions.

“If you have insightful commentary about a post, we recommend using the Share Video or Quote feature to ensure your posts are properly attributed,” Bier said.

The move is the latest in X’s expanding effort to refine its creator incentive programs, and ensure that original creators get credit, which, ideally, will keep them posting their original material to the app.

Back in January, X announced a crackdown on crypto community posts, with crypto projects often incentivizing users to post generic replies to X posts as part of a mass promotional effort. Bier also announced an effort to disincentivize posting about foreign politics (though Musk cancelled this push), while he has also shared various updates on efforts the app is undertaking to address potential abuse of its creator monetization system.  

X first announced its effort to credit original creators, as opposed to aggregator accounts, last month, when Bier explained that: “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.”

And while ensuring creators are properly credited for their work is one aspect, X is also looking to cut down on spam and junk posts in order to improve its data stream, with the X feed being the key data input for its Grok chatbot and other xAI projects.

The more insightful, and valuable that input stream is, the better its artificial intelligence responses will be, and the less work the xAI team will need to do to counteract the influence of less valuable comments and notes.

The only question then is what impact this push will have on broader in-app engagement, with aggregator accounts driving significant response, and helping to amplify rising trends in the app.

Cutting aggregator incentives could see fewer of them posting, and with only 20% of X users ever posting anything at all, any reduction in this activity could be significant.