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X announced an update to its creator revenue share program, which is designed to better incentivize original content creators and further curtail content aggregators and re-posters.
Rebranded as the Original Creator Rewards program, the new plan sets updated parameters around is considered original content. All participating creators will now have to abide by these new restrictions in order to earn payouts.
As explained by X: “Creating original content takes time, effort, expertise, and creativity. The Original Content Rewards Program is designed to reward creators who bring those things to X. We want to recognize creators who break news, share expertise, tell stories, create entertainment, and contribute meaningful perspectives to the conversation.”
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X announced an update to its creator revenue share program, which is designed to better incentivize original content creators and further curtail content aggregators and re-posters.
Rebranded as the Original Creator Rewards program, the new plan sets updated parameters around is considered original content. All participating creators will now have to abide by these new restrictions in order to earn payouts.
As explained by X: “Creating original content takes time, effort, expertise, and creativity. The Original Content Rewards Program is designed to reward creators who bring those things to X. We want to recognize creators who break news, share expertise, tell stories, create entertainment, and contribute meaningful perspectives to the conversation.”
X added that the goal of the new incentive program is simple, “Reward creators who bring something new to X,” the company said.
The company offered an overview of what qualifies as original content now:
Original writing, threads, articles, reporting or analysis
User-created photos or videos
Memes, graphics, illustrations and other creative work designed by a user
Commentary, reactions or insights that add meaningful perspective to existing conversations
Content that materially and meaningfully transforms existing content through original context, analysis, narration, humor or creative editing
More importantly, X also outlined what won’t be considered original content and what will subsequently no longer be monetizable.
The key disqualifiers include:
Work that is copied or substantially reproduced from another creator
Work that is downloaded from X or another platform and reuploaded onto X (unless the user is the author of that content)
Content that was created or posted using automated means
Content that is exclusively focused on monetization coaching, monetization discussion or maximizing payouts
Content that contains disinformation or misleading content
Adding post captions or text overlays that simply describe what is already happening
It’s interesting to consider where artificial intelligence-generated content falls under these new parameters. Technically, AI-generated images and video would be created “using automated means,” but X hasn’t specifically denoted AI-generated outputs within these new rules. This could become a point of contention, depending on how X looks to enforce these rules.
It’s also worth noting that X’s definition of disinformation is somewhat different than other platforms, particularly as it relates to political topics.
X has increasingly sought to put more reliance on its crowd-sourced Community Notes to dictate what’s correct and what’s not, and the company does not use an internal moderation team.
The chief flaw in this process is that Community Notes are only displayed if there’s consensus between notes contributors who hold opposing political perspectives. On many political issues, that consensus will never be reached, which means that a level of misinformation is often allowed.
According to an analysis report published by Bloomberg in March last year, fewer than 10% of the Community Notes submitted via X’s notes system ever show up in the app, despite many of these having valid justification for display.
X’s revenue share program will remain only available to X Premium subscribers, while payouts are also based on “unique impressions from Premium users on the Home Timeline feed.”
So this is all fairly constrained, especially given that fewer than 1% of X users have signed up to X Premium. Even so, some X users have been able to generate a solid, steady income from their X posts, and as such, it could be worth considering for those who are sharing original updates to the app.
It will also be interesting to note how significantly this update changes the X feed, and what impact penalizing aggregators has on X engagement.
In May, within the SpaceX prospectus, the parent company of X reported that X users cumulatively generated about 350 million posts in the app each day. That’s down from the 500 million posts per day that X reported in 2023. That 500 million total was broken down to 100 million original posts, 100 million replies and 300 million quotes and reposts.
SpaceX didn’t provide the same breakdown for its 350 million post figure. But at face value, it does seem like posting momentum on the app is slowing. Reducing the incentive to keep sharing content could further impact this.
Maybe that’s less relevant to X than improving the content stream, since X posts are what feed its xAI databanks, which powers its AI projects. The cleaner this feed is, the more valuable it will be in this context, and that alone may be enough reason to refine the content stream.
Either way, it’s another step towards improving incentives for original creators and reducing incentives for aggregators. This has also been a key focus for the app in 2026.
In April, X announced a change to its incentive program that was designed to reduce the payouts for aggregator accounts. Meanwhile in March, X implemented measures to demonetize AI deepfakes. In January, X sought to restrict crypto projects, and X proposed a new approach in March that would remove the incentive for creators to post about political topics outside of their home nation. However, X owner Elon Musk nixed that plan after some of his favorite users complained about the update.
Clearly, refining the stream has become a key way for X to improve its content stream, though it’s not clear whether this is intended to boost user retention and engagement numbers or clean up the data feed.
X said the new program will begin on September 8, and that all creators currently enrolled in its existing Creator Revenue Share scheme will need to reapply under these new parameters.
“Starting today, we’re no longer accepting new enrolments into Revenue Sharing,” the company said. “If you’re currently enrolled in Revenue Sharing, you’ll continue earning through September 7th, 2026 […] Starting September 8th, 2026, we’ll begin rolling out access for existing Revenue Sharing members to apply for the new Original Content Rewards Program.”
X added that creators will need to meet the program’s revised eligibility requirements and will also be able to check their account’s eligibility in Creator Studio.
