For years now, X has quietly rewarded one of the internet’s most annoying business models: stealing someone else’s content, reposting it faster, slapping “BREAKING” on top, and farming millions of impressions before the original creator even realizes what happened. Now, the platform finally seems ready to crack down on that entire ecosystem.
X says repost farmers and clickbait accounts are losing payouts
According to X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, the company is now actively targeting large accounts that have been “programmatically reuploading content from smaller accounts” to game X’s creator revenue-sharing system. The platform says it will now redirect impressions and monetization benefits back toward original creators instead of repost aggregators.
Bier says X has already started identifying accounts abusing the system and reducing their payouts aggressively. In some cases, repeat offenders reportedly saw creator revenue slashed by as much as 90 percent. The crackdown also appears to target accounts endlessly flooding timelines with clickbait headlines, recycled videos, rage-bait engagement posts, and rapid-fire aggregation. X says creators adding commentary should instead use proper “Quote” or “Share Video” features so attribution still benefits the original uploader.
X accidentally monetized content theft for years
The funny thing is that this problem was never exactly hidden. The moment X started paying creators primarily based on impressions and engagement, the platform quickly became flooded with repost accounts farming viral videos, rage-bait politics, AI slop, crypto spam, and recycled posts designed purely to chase monetization payouts.
And honestly, X helped create the perfect incentive structure for all of it. Reposting someone else’s content was often faster, easier, and more profitable than making anything original in the first place. That’s exactly why this crackdown probably had to happen eventually, because if actual creators stop benefiting from their own work, the platform slowly turns into an endless feed of stolen content fighting for ad revenue.