Social media platform X has declared a significant crackdown on large accounts that rip off the work of smaller creators to manipulate its revenue-sharing system. In an announcement, X’s head of product Nikita Bier stated that his team has “identified a number of large accounts that have been programmatically reuploading content.” Bier highlighted that these accounts often circumvent proper crediting of the original author.
Over the past month, Bier elaborated, X has identified numerous large accounts exploiting programmatic reuploads of content from smaller accounts to game the revenue share program and avoid attributing original authors. He affirmed that X is now actively identifying these posts and will allocate all impressions entirely to the original creators. Bier also urged X users to utilize the native Share Video or Quote features to ensure proper attribution when sharing insightful commentary or media.
Bier specifically called out Mario Nawfal, who boasts 3.5 million followers and hosts X's largest live discussion show. Nawfal recently shared an ABC News video depicting a reporter's reaction to gunshots near The White House. A Community Note appended to Nawfal’s post directly accused him: "OP stole this video without providing credit."
Following this, Bier commented directly on Nawfal’s post, stating: “Your revenue was reduced by 90% last cycle and we’re running out of room to reduce it more.” Business Insider reported that Nawfal claimed the Reshare button doesn’t function for longer tweets. However, this response was also community-noted, essentially labeling Nawfal a "liar" and a "chronic content thief."
While content theft is a pervasive issue across social media platforms, with Instagram also battling similar problems, X (formerly Twitter) has long struggled with users stealing creator content. This problem appeared to intensify under Elon Musk’s stewardship.
Last year, astrophotographer Paul M. Smith experienced multiple accounts stealing his video of the Geminids meteor shower. Prominent accounts like "Curiosity" directly ripped off his work for their own benefit. After X failed to take action, Smith pursued these accounts with DMCA notices, leading to the removal of most infringing content. Compounding the issue, large accounts often block creators like Smith once they complain. The Massimo account on X blocked Smith after he filed a successful DMCA against it. Smith informed PetaPixel that Massimo reportedly received immunity from Musk due to being one of his favorite accounts.
[AgentUpdate Depth Analysis]X's aggressive stance against content theft holds significant implications for the evolving AI Agent ecosystem. As AI Agents become increasingly sophisticated in content generation, aggregation, and distribution, they inherently amplify both the potential for innovation and the risks of copyright infringement. Maliciously programmed AI Agents could be deployed for automated, large-scale content scraping, rephrasing, or direct reuploading, mimicking the "programmatic reuploading" tactics X is currently combating, but with greater stealth and efficiency. This could lead to an explosion of unattributed or stolen content, making original authorship nearly impossible to trace without advanced tools. Conversely, responsibly developed AI Agents could become crucial guardians of intellectual property. Future agents could be designed to proactively monitor for unauthorized content usage, automatically verify content provenance using digital watermarks or blockchain, and even initiate DMCA takedown requests. Furthermore, they could facilitate fairer revenue-sharing models through smart contracts, ensuring creators are automatically compensated when their work is utilized by other agents or platforms. X's current battle underscores the critical need for the AI Agent ecosystem to integrate robust ethical frameworks and technical safeguards for content attribution and intellectual property rights from its foundational stages.
