Since 2022, when Elon Musk bought Twitter, took it private, and renamed it X, the once-beloved bird app has taken a dramatic turn, becoming a shadow of its former self, at least for many of its most loyal users.
The platform became a breeding ground for misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech. Although X is not alone in the growing spread of falsehoods and harmful content, the platform’s push for profitability, particularly the monetisation of the blue tick and the introduction of the Creator Revenue Sharing programme, which was introduced to boost engagement on the platform, appears to have accelerated its use as a medium for spreading falsehoods for attention and financial gain.
Because conspiracy theories and propaganda, whether driven by politics, ideology, or other agendas, often spread faster than verified information, many users began farming content on the platform, posting sensational or misleading material designed to go viral. With high impressions and engagement, some creators were rewarded financially for content that added little value and often amplified misinformation.
However, from September 8, 2026, X will begin replacing its Creator Revenue Sharing programme with a new system called Original Content Rewards, which is designed to place greater emphasis on creators who produce their own content rather than accounts that generate engagement by reposting or lightly repackaging what others have already created.
The change will not happen immediately. X stopped accepting new applications to the old programme on August 7, while creators already enrolled will continue earning under the existing system until September 7. From September 8, existing participants can begin applying for the new programme if they meet its requirements.
Will this reduce hate speech, misinformation, and the engagement farming that has become increasingly common on the platform? To answer that, let’s first look at how the old revenue-sharing model worked, how the new model would work, and what it means for creators.
How X’s old revenue-sharing programme worked
Creator Revenue Sharing allowed eligible creators to earn money from activity around their posts. Over time, X adjusted how payouts were calculated, placing more weight on impressions from verified users on users’ Home timelines, as well as factors such as who viewed the content and the format of the post.
Under the most recent requirements, creators needed an active Premium subscription, at least 5 million organic impressions in the previous three months, at least 500 verified followers, and an account in good standing. Payouts were processed every two weeks, with a $30 minimum payout.
In March this year, an X user named Oyindamola, with the handle @dammiedammie35, claimed that he received a ₦32 million payout from Musk’s X after restrictions on his account were lifted.
A review of his account by TechMedia Africa shows a pattern that many other creators have adopted: posting viral-style content sourced from other platforms and heavily relying on reposted material.
The system created a straightforward incentive: the more qualifying attention a creator’s posts received, the greater the potential payout. But that also created a problem.
Why X is removing the old system
The problem was not necessarily that creators were earning money. It was what the payment system encouraged some accounts to do to generate those earnings.
As X’s creator economy grew, the platform saw accounts attracting large numbers of impressions by reposting popular content, recycling news, copying posts from smaller creators, or making minor changes to material that had already been published elsewhere.
That became particularly problematic for original creators. An account could take a viral post, image, video, or news story, republish it to a much larger audience, and potentially benefit from the engagement without being the person who originally created the work.
X had already started addressing this problem before announcing the new programme. In April, the company said it had reduced payments to accounts posting clickbait and recycled news, while X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, said some large accounts were programmatically re-uploading content from smaller accounts to exploit the revenue-sharing system.
This helps explain the broader reason for the change: X believes the old system was rewarding the ability to generate engagement, but not always the people actually creating something new.
The company now wants to change that incentive.
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What is X’s Original Content Rewards programme?
The new programme shifts the focus from general revenue sharing to original content.
According to X, creators will earn based on qualified impressions generated by their original content. These are unique impressions from Premium users on the Home Timeline where at least 50 percent of the post is visible.
Paid, promoted, artificially generated, fraudulent, or duplicate impressions do not count.
The important difference is what X considers original.
Original content can include something a creator writes, films, designs, or produces themselves. It can also include commentary, analysis, reporting, reactions, or additional context around something happening in the world, provided the creator contributes a genuine perspective or expertise.
That means the new programme is not saying creators must publish only content that has never appeared anywhere else.
For example, a creator who takes a news story and breaks it down in their own words, adds analysis, or provides context can still qualify. The difference is that the creator must actually add value rather than simply copying the original material.
What will no longer count as original?
This is where the new system becomes stricter.
X says content will not qualify when the creator’s contribution is minimal or absent. That includes copying another person’s text, image, or video and uploading it without adding anything meaningful.
It also excludes content that has been only slightly modified, such as replacing a few words, adding a filter, changing the playback speed, or placing text over someone else’s content.
Accounts that mainly aggregate material from other creators without adding substantial perspective are also excluded. The same applies to content taken from another platform and reposted by someone who was not the original creator.
For a creator who has built an audience by reposting viral videos, screenshots, memes, news stories, or other people’s posts, the new system could significantly change how they approach content.
Who can qualify for Original Content Rewards?
X has also lowered some of the reach requirements while changing the way eligibility is measured.
Creators applying for the new programme must be at least 18 years old, have a personal or business account in good standing, maintain an eligible Premium subscription, and be in a supported country.
They also need at least 500 verified followers and 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users within the previous 90 days. Impressions generated through replies do not count toward this requirement. Most importantly, applicants must actively publish original content.
Meeting the numerical thresholds does not automatically guarantee entry. X says eligible creators must still submit an application, which the company will review.
Nigeria is among the countries where the Original Content Rewards programme is available.
Could this mitigate fake news and misinformation?
The short answer is partly, but probably not dramatically.
The new programme addresses one of the financial incentives that helped fuel engagement farming. By reducing rewards for copied, recycled, and low-effort viral content, X may make it less profitable for some accounts to flood the platform with sensational material designed purely to maximise impressions.
That could reduce a specific type of misinformation ecosystem, particularly accounts that profit from reposting misleading videos, fabricated screenshots, or recycled conspiracy content without adding any original contribution.
However, misinformation does not depend solely on reposts. A creator can still produce original misinformation. False claims, manipulated narratives, hate speech, and conspiracy theories can all be presented as original commentary, analysis, or reporting. If such content generates attention from Premium users, it could still qualify for monetisation unless X’s moderation systems identify and act against it.
The deeper issue is that X’s recommendation algorithms still reward attention, and misinformation is often highly engaging. The Original Content Rewards programme changes what is monetised, but it does not fundamentally change what can go viral.
In that sense, the policy is more likely to reduce content theft and engagement farming than to eliminate misinformation. Its effectiveness will ultimately depend less on the payment programme itself and more on how aggressively X enforces rules against misleading, deceptive, and harmful content.