X Cuts Payments to Clickbait Accounts
▼ Summary
– X is reducing payments by 60% to accounts that aggregate news and will cut them another 20% next cycle.
– The platform is also cutting pay for habitual posters who overuse “BREAKING” and clickbait to manipulate the system.
– This policy change follows reports from conservative news accounts, like Dom Lucre, receiving demonetization notices.
– Some creators dispute the categorization, arguing they are not aggregators and are unfairly impacted by the payout reductions.
– The changes occurred amid broader debates about X’s ecosystem and the dominance of certain political content on the platform.
The social media platform X is implementing a significant policy shift, directly reducing financial payouts to accounts that rely on clickbait tactics and high-volume news aggregation. According to Nikita Bier, the company’s head of product, this move aims to improve platform quality by discouraging behavior that “floods the timeline” and harms authentic creator growth. Bier announced that all identified aggregators saw their payments cut to 60% in the latest cycle, with another 20% reduction scheduled for the next. The policy also targets accounts habitually using sensational labels like “🚨BREAKING” on posts that are not genuinely urgent news.
Bier framed the decision as a necessary step to protect the platform’s integrity. He stated that the relentless stream of repurposed content and misleading headlines was crowding out genuine creators and stifling the development of new voices. While emphasizing that X would not restrict speech or reach, he made clear the company “will not compensate for manipulation of the program or our users.” This announcement followed reports from several prominent conservative accounts, which claimed they had received demonetization notices from the platform.
One affected user is Dominick McGee, who operates under the name Dom Lucre and has 1.6 million followers. McGee, who gained initial popularity by sharing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, publicly questioned why his account was demonetized. He noted he had previously been demonetized for a year before regaining and then suddenly losing his earning status again. Last year, McGee told The New York Times he was earning approximately $55,000 annually from the platform. In response to Bier’s post, he argued that X was catering to critics who are not active creators, and while admitting that overusing “BREAKING” constitutes clickbait, he claimed only a small fraction of his hundreds of weekly posts use the term. Other users contested this, appending a community note that cited 91 instances of him using “BREAKING” in the preceding week.
The policy change has sparked concern among other creators who fear being incorrectly categorized. An account named PoliMath expressed appreciation for the intent behind the crackdown but reported receiving their lowest payout in a long time, worrying they had been mistakenly placed in the “aggregators” group. The account maintained they are not an aggregator, though they acknowledged a paid partnership with the prediction market Kalshi.
This development coincides with a broader debate about X’s ecosystem and value. Data analyst Nate Silver recently criticized the platform, noting the increasing difficulty of driving external traffic from it and highlighting the disproportionate dominance of right-wing accounts in its top ranks. Silver suggested the platform’s ecosystem is fundamentally “broken.” Bier disputed the accuracy of Silver’s data, and owner Elon Musk dismissed the claims, though other independent analyses have supported Silver’s observations about the platform’s dynamics.
(Source: TechCrunch)
