X Cracks Down on Content Aggregators: No More Easy Money from Stolen Viral Videos
X (formerly Twitter) has launched a major crackdown on accounts that systematically repost other people’s viral videos to farm impressions and revenue share payouts.
- “Over the past month, we have identified a number of large accounts that have been programmatically reuploading content from smaller accounts to game the revenue share program and circumvent crediting the original author,” Bier wrote.
- “We are now identifying those posts and allocating the impressions entirely to the creator.”
The message to aggregators is simple: if you want to comment on or react to someone else’s video, use the native Quote Post or Video Reshare features. Otherwise, your payouts could be slashed by up to 90%.
Public Shaming of a Top Aggregator
Under one of Nawfal’s recent posts, Community Notes quickly appeared with a stark message:
“OP stole this video without providing credit.”
When Nawfal pushed back, additional Community Notes were added citing three more examples of him reuploading content without credit — all from the same day. In a direct reply, Nikita Bier warned him personally:
“Please do not reupload the author’s video: use Quote or Video Reshare. Your revenue was reduced by 90% last cycle and we’re running out of room to reduce it more.”
The public dressing-down sent a clear signal: no one is too big to face consequences.
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Will It Work?
The move targets a well-known problem on X. For years, a significant portion of the platform’s feed has been built on stolen or lightly edited viral videos from smaller creators — content that racks up millions of views while the original creators receive little to no compensation.
Whether this is enough to fix an entire ecosystem where “half the feed is built on stolen content” remains to be seen. But the aggressive tone from X’s product leadership — combined with real-time enforcement and public examples — shows the platform is serious about protecting its creator economy.
For aggregators who built large followings and revenue streams on other people’s work, the free ride appears to be over. For genuine creators, it’s long-overdue good news.