{"id":3489285,"date":"2026-04-12T17:02:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/12\/x-states-it-is-decreasing-payments-to-clickbait-accounts\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T17:02:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:02:20","slug":"x-states-it-is-decreasing-payments-to-clickbait-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/12\/x-states-it-is-decreasing-payments-to-clickbait-accounts\/","title":{"rendered":"X states it is decreasing payments to clickbait accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

According to its head of product Nikita Bier, X is reducing payments to accounts that are \u201cflooding the timeline\u201d with clickbait and rapid news aggregation.<\/p>\n

Bier stated on Saturday that \u201c[a]ll aggregators had their payouts decreased to 60% this cycle\u201d and mentioned that there will be an additional 20% cut in the upcoming payment cycle. He also noted that the social media platform owned by Elon Musk will be scaling back payments for \u201cfrequent bait posters who label every post as \u2018\ud83d\udea8BREAKING\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became increasingly obvious: saturating the timeline with 100 stolen reposts and clickbait every day pushed out genuine creators and hindered the growth of new authors,\u201d Bier remarked, adding, \u201cX will never violate free speech or reach \u2014 but we will not pay for the manipulation of our program or users.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bier\u2019s statements followed reports from several conservative news accounts indicating that they had received notifications from X about their accounts being demonetized.<\/p>\n

Dominick McGee, known as Dom Lucre, commented, \u201c\ud83d\udd25\ud83d\udea8BREAKING [\u2026] I was the first creator to be demonetized on this platform, and it lasted a whole year. I regained it, only to lose it again without any explanation. How could this happen? I am one of the most dedicated creators on X.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGee boasts 1.6 million followers on X. He gained fame by sharing conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election, and although he was temporarily banned from X in 2023 and demonetized in 2024, he told The New York Times last year that he was earning $55,000 annually from the platform.<\/p>\n

In reaction to Bier\u2019s statement, McGee expressed that X appeared to be catering to \u201cthe grievances of individuals who have no intention of creating on this app.\u201d While he acknowledged that labeling every post as breaking news would qualify as \u201cclickbait,\u201d he insisted, \u201cI post hundreds of times, and very few are BREAKING.\u201d (Some users on X seemed to disagree, providing a community note linking to 91 instances where he had used the term \u201cBREAKING\u201d in the previous week.)<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Other users asserted that they were affected by X\u2019s crackdown, with an account named PoliMath stating, \u201cI appreciate what Nikita is attempting to achieve, but I just received my lowest payout in a long time, so I\u2019m a bit anxious that I may have inadvertently fallen into the \u2018aggregators\u2019 category.\u201d The account claimed they are \u201cnot an \u2018aggregator\u2019 by any means,\u201d although they recognized having a paid partnership with Kalshi.<\/p>\n

Bier\u2019s remarks also came amidst renewed discussion regarding the value of the X platform, with data analyst and commentator Nate Silver lamenting the increased difficulty in redirecting traffic from X to other sites. He highlighted the prevalence of right-leaning accounts on X, stating, \u201cI guess I had some intuition about how bad it was, but wow, this is the outcome of a broken ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bier contended that Silver\u2019s data is inaccurate, and Musk referred to his posts as \u201cbullshit,\u201d despite other analyses supporting Silver\u2019s assertions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/div>\n

According to its head of product Nikita Bier, X is reducing payments to accounts that are \u201cflooding the timeline\u201d with clickbait and rapid news aggregation.<\/p>\n

Bier stated on Saturday that \u201c[a]ll aggregators had their payouts decreased to 60% this cycle\u201d and mentioned that there will be an additional 20% cut in the upcoming payment cycle. He also noted that the social media platform owned by Elon Musk will be scaling back payments for \u201cfrequent bait posters who label every post as \u2018\ud83d\udea8BREAKING\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became increasingly obvious: saturating the timeline with 100 stolen reposts and clickbait every day pushed out genuine creators and hindered the growth of new authors,\u201d Bier remarked, adding, \u201cX will never violate free speech or reach \u2014 but we will not pay for the manipulation of our program or users.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bier\u2019s statements followed reports from several conservative news accounts indicating that they had received notifications from X about their accounts being demonetized.<\/p>\n

Dominick McGee, known as Dom Lucre, commented, \u201c\ud83d\udd25\ud83d\udea8BREAKING [\u2026] I was the first creator to be demonetized on this platform, and it lasted a whole year. I regained it, only to lose it again without any explanation. How could this happen? I am one of the most dedicated creators on X.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGee boasts 1.6 million followers on X. He gained fame by sharing conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election, and although he was temporarily banned from X in 2023 and demonetized in 2024, he told The New York Times last year that he was earning $55,000 annually from the platform.<\/p>\n

In reaction to Bier\u2019s statement, McGee expressed that X appeared to be catering to \u201cthe grievances of individuals who have no intention of creating on this app.\u201d While he acknowledged that labeling every post as breaking news would qualify as \u201cclickbait,\u201d he insisted, \u201cI post hundreds of times, and very few are BREAKING.\u201d (Some users on X seemed to disagree, providing a community note linking to 91 instances where he had used the term \u201cBREAKING\u201d in the previous week.)<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Other users asserted that they were affected by X\u2019s crackdown, with an account named PoliMath stating, \u201cI appreciate what Nikita is attempting to achieve, but I just received my lowest payout in a long time, so I\u2019m a bit anxious that I may have inadvertently fallen into the \u2018aggregators\u2019 category.\u201d The account claimed they are \u201cnot an \u2018aggregator\u2019 by any means,\u201d although they recognized having a paid partnership with Kalshi.<\/p>\n

Bier\u2019s remarks also came amidst renewed discussion regarding the value of the X platform, with data analyst and commentator Nate Silver lamenting the increased difficulty in redirecting traffic from X to other sites. He highlighted the prevalence of right-leaning accounts on X, stating, \u201cI guess I had some intuition about how bad it was, but wow, this is the outcome of a broken ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bier contended that Silver\u2019s data is inaccurate, and Musk referred to his posts as \u201cbullshit,\u201d despite other analyses supporting Silver\u2019s assertions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3489286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3489285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3489285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3489286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3489285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3489285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3489285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}