X shuts down revenue sharing on September 7. The replacement only pays for original content.

X is shutting down its revenue-sharing programme on September 7 and replacing it with a new system called the Original Content Rewards Programme. The change is designed to reward creators who post original work, not people who repost other users’ content with a caption slapped on top. Under the new rules, creators earn money based on “qualified impressions” their original content receives from verified users. X defines original content as a user’s own writing, reporting, photos, videos, memes, or illustrations.

The eligibility bar is high. Creators must be 18 or older, pay for a Premium, Premium+, or Premium Business subscription, have at least 500 verified followers, and have earned at least 500,000 home timeline views from verified users in the past 90 days. Those requirements must be maintained after acceptance, not just met once. If a creator’s numbers drop, payouts stop. Impressions only count if they come from other Premium users, which narrows the audience that matters for monetisation to X’s paying base.

The definition of “original” is specific. Adding a caption or text overlay to someone else’s video that simply describes what is happening does not count. Creative editing, meaningful commentary, or original analysis of another person’s post does count. The distinction is X’s attempt to separate creators from aggregators, a problem that has plagued every platform that pays for engagement. Snapchat made a similar move last week, banning AI-generated videos from Spotlight recommendations to protect human creators from being drowned out by machine-made content.

People currently enrolled in revenue sharing must reapply for the new programme when it opens on September 8. Those not in the old programme can apply now. In March, X updated its revenue-sharing rules to weight engagement from a user’s home region more heavily, a change widely seen as a response to reports that dozens of popular pro-Trump accounts were run from outside the United States. YouTube has been fighting the same battle from the opposite direction, cutting payouts for AI-generated content while its algorithm punishes legitimate creators who do not show their faces. X’s bet is that requiring originality and a paying audience will produce a different outcome.