X has launched one of its toughest crackdowns yet on content manipulation, removing thousands of accounts from its Creator Revenue Share program and promising to redirect more than $1 million in earnings back to original creators after detecting widespread engagement bait and content theft.
The announcement was made by Nikita Bier, X’s Head of Product, who oversees many of the platform’s consumer features and creator tools.
Bier, an American entrepreneur and product manager known for co-founding viral teen apps like tbh and Gas before joining X as Head of Product in 2025, detailed the updates in a post on the platform.
Nikita Bier wrote on July 16:
Some updates on the creator rev share program:
1. Soliciting engagements (“I’ll follow everyone who replies”) 3 or more times will results in removal from the program and your account will be forwarded to the policy team for suspension. Grok now catches all of these.
Nearly 4000 accounts were removed from the program today.
2. Our new model now detects duplicated content at 3x the rate of the previous model. Adding watermarks, intros and other edits will send monetized impressions to the original uploader. This also includes copying viral text posts (most common one: “Twitter is like the smoking section of the internet”).
We detected 1.5 million posts that were stolen this cycle. Repeated or intentional circumvention will lead to removal from the program.
With these changes, over $1 million will be given back to original content creators.
In the post on X, Bier outlined sweeping changes to the platform’s monetization system aimed at rewarding authentic creators while penalizing users attempting to game the algorithm.
According to Bier, accounts that solicit engagement through repeated posts such as “I’ll follow everyone who replies” three or more times will now be removed from the Creator Revenue Share program. Their accounts may also be referred to X’s policy team for possible suspension.
He said X’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, now automatically detects such behavior.
The platform removed nearly 4,000 accounts from the monetization program in a single day under the new enforcement measures.
Implications for creators worldwide
The reforms have been welcomed by many as a necessary step towards fairness in the creator economy, but they also highlight ongoing challenges, particularly for users in regions with lower advertising rates and different content cultures.
Content theft and engagement farming have long plagued the programme, allowing low-effort accounts to siphon revenue from those producing original material. By prioritising originals, X aims to incentivise higher-quality posting and reduce the flood of repetitive or farmed content that has frustrated users.
For creators who have suffered from theft, the changes could mean tangible financial relief. However, enforcement also raises questions about transparency and appeal processes, especially for smaller accounts that might inadvertently fall foul of the new rules.
Nonetheless, the latest measures suggest X is shifting toward a creator economy that rewards originality over volume, with artificial intelligence playing an increasingly central role in policing platform abuse.
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