X toughens rules against creators who steal others' content

X is tightening enforcement against creators who abuse its revenue-sharing program by stealing content and soliciting engagement. Recirculated viral content is a familiar problem, especially on platforms like X where it can be rewarded with likes, follows, and, in some cases, hard cash — Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit each deal with the same issue and have built technical measures to discourage it, such as tools that flag reposts made without giving credit to the original poster. X had already added an improved video editor and recorder meant to encourage creators to use its own tools rather than lift others’ work.

Nikita Bier of X said the platform’s newest version of its Grok AI model can detect duplicated content at three times the rate of its previous version. Going forward, posts that add watermarks, intros, or other edits designed to disguise stolen material — including copies of viral text posts — will have their monetized impressions redirected to the original uploader. Bier said the most commonly copied text post reads, “Twitter is like the smoking section of the internet,” which he pointed to as evidence that people still call the app Twitter. Bier said X detected 1.5 million stolen posts in its latest cycle, though he did not specify the length of that cycle, and that over $1 million in creator payouts will now go back to the original creators of that content.

Because much of this abuse is AI-enabled, X has also been working to suspend bots more quickly: Bier said in April that X was identifying and suspending bots at a rate of 208 per minute and growing. Under the new policy, repeated or intentional attempts to evade the rules will get a user removed from the creator program, as will soliciting engagement or follows. A user caught doing the latter three times or more — for example, by promising to follow everyone who replies — will be removed from the program and referred to X’s policy team for possible suspension. Bier has criticized engagement bait before, including calling out top creator MrBeast for relying on financial incentives to draw viewers.

Why it matters

The move signals X is treating content theft and engagement manipulation as core threats to its creator-payout economics, following similar anti-theft measures already in place at Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit.