The update was announced by Nikita Bier, a product manager at X. Ever since the monetization program was launched, a whole ecosystem has evolved based on a certain pattern. A small creator uploads a video that begins to gain traction, a larger account takes it and reposts it before the original can take off. The repost accumulates views and the associated revenue, while the original creator watches their content earn money elsewhere.

How X Plans to Catch Content Thieves

Bier says that X is collaborating with the xAI teams on a new process that can trace the origin of the content, even when it has been reposted without any alterations. Once detected, the repost is stripped of its impressions, which are then fully reassigned to the original creator. The thieving account keeps the post but loses the revenue-generating mechanism attached to it.

For those who wish to legitimately share a video with commentary, X encourages the use of its native ‘Share video’ or ‘Repost’ features. These tools retain a connection to the original post and therefore do not create any attribution issues. On the other hand, bluntly reposting by re-uploading the file will become economically nonsensical.

The Public Case of Mario Nawfal

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Nikita Bier did not shy away from naming specific examples. He publicly singled out Mario Nawfal, CEO of IBC Group, a crypto consultancy that runs the largest live discussion on X with about 3.5 million followers. The issue involved a video of an ABC News journalist reacting to gunfire near the White House, which had been reposted without any credit.

Bier added a juicy detail: Nawfal’s revenues had already been slashed by 90% in the previous cycle, and they could not be reduced any further. Nawfal responded by claiming he had used the video resharing option, but it didn’t work on long tweets. A community note responded by listing various uncredited posts.

A Real Offensive Against Aggregators

The issue extends beyond a few accounts. An entire business model on X has been built around recycling other users’ work. Aggregator accounts that produce nothing but continually plunder others’ content. They earn significant amounts through revenue sharing. This problem has been longstanding and has undermined genuine creators.

The ability to automatically identify the origin of a video that’s been reposted unchanged seems achievable. However, detecting a version that has been trimmed or enriched with added subtitles later will require a different approach. If X truly manages to protect smaller creators, the social network could become attractive again for those producing original content.