[Written By External Partner]
In theory, the concept was solid: Not long after changing the name of Twitter to X, the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, announced that the most followed and most creative accounts would be rewarded, later launching the X Creator Monetization program. This was basically the new economy, and it would be key to X becoming, in Musk’s words, the Everything App.
It backfired. That’s not an opinion. X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, has spent the last few weeks tweeting about how accounts that post spam, clickbait, steal other people’s content, and other forms of gaming the system will be demonetized. It’s caused outrage, but Bier is not for backing down.
How did we get here? As we said, the idea was solid. Twitter/X was long known for being the wittiest social media website; it was also the best source for breaking news and political opinion. Musk wanted to accelerate and elevate that, following the logic that paying the best accounts to tweet and create content (video content is highly valued) would encourage them to do so more frequently and with more care.
The system led to inorganic posting
Yet, the program led to a system that was inorganic. Accounts knew that the more engagement they got, the more money they could potentially earn, so, for example, there would be more comments underneath posts; the original poster would reply to every comment, often adding nothing new to the conversation. In the simplest terms, people tweeted when there was nothing to say. And, in some cases, they would simply find controversial, misleading, or stolen content and tweet that instead.
All of us are driven by financial concerns, of course. Each one of us would like to purchase a few lottery tickets online, then wake up the next day to an email informing us that we are now millionaires. Yet, the mistake, as such, made by X is that it never distinguished between engagement and quality posting. That’s what Nikita Bier is trying to fix now.
Too late to fix?
The question is whether it is too late. We won’t wade into the debate over free speech and the extremist content that has permeated the platform during Musk’s tenure, but it is enough to say that many people have fled the platform, leaving for Threads and Bluesky, or abandoning social media altogether. Some have stuck it out, but the atmosphere has changed. Twitter was always angry, but there was always room for cheery wit. X is angrier, and it is designed to make you angry.
Nikita Bier, whom we have mentioned, knows what makes people tick, however. He is new in the job as Head of Product, but he has a track record of success in creating successful social media apps, and he understands people and their motivations for engaging on social media. He’s the right person to fix it, if it can be fixed.
As we said, the idea was a good one. Twitter/X was never the biggest social media platform in terms of users, paling in comparison to Facebook and Instagram, but in terms of influence over politics and social opinion, it was, and it still is, the go-to platform. There’s a reason why heads of state see it as their most important communication tool. But Bier and Musk find a way to reward quality, not quantity. It might be easier said than done.
