If you have spent any time building original content on X and watched an aggregator account repost your work, rack up impressions, and pocket the revenue while you received nothing, this update is specifically for you. The platform has been watching this dynamic erode trust among its most valuable contributors for years, and the push to have X seek improvements to its incentives for original creators is the most direct response the platform has delivered yet. It is not perfect. But it is meaningful and every creator on X should understand exactly what changed.
What X Is Changing
X is experimenting with new tools to identify original authors of content and allocating a portion of revenue to them. X’s head of product Nikita Bier wrote that the company wants its creator revenue-sharing program to incentivize original, high-quality content that brings new value to the Timeline.
The mechanism for achieving this is direct and financially significant. X has reduced payments of aggregator accounts to 60 percent for this payout cycle, with an additional 20 percent reduction planned for the next cycle.
Why Aggregators Became the Problem
Bier stated that it became clear to the X team that flooding the timeline with 100 stolen reposts and clickbait everyday crowded out real creators and hurt new author growth. As a result, X is planning to assign a permanent deduction to habitual bait posters who use “BREAKING” on every post.
X first announced its effort to credit original creators, as opposed to aggregator accounts, explaining that this means rewarding the effort it takes to produce something, not just the poster who helped it travel furthest.
That framing captures the core injustice the update is trying to correct — the person who does the work should benefit from it, not the account that simply copies and redistributes it.
