X is updating its revenue-sharing incentives to give more weight to engagement from a user's home region, according to Nikita Bier, the company's Head of Product. The change begins this week and represents a direct response to the discovery that thousands of accounts pretending to be American are actually operating from overseas and profiting from it.
The real question is why this matters beyond social media drama. X appreciates everyone's opinion on US politics, but the company is hoping the new policy can "disincentivize gaming the attention of US or Japanese accounts," which have the largest number of users on X. In practical terms, this means X will still allow overseas commentary on American affairs, but it won't pay creators for that content.
How the deception was revealed
The incentive structure became a problem after dozens of popular accounts tweeting pro-Trump sentiments and commentaries focusing on US politics in general were revealed to be based outside the US late last year, when X rolled out a transparency feature that exposed users' locations. X was flooded with viral posts showing that numerous high-engagement, MAGA-branded accounts that present themselves as those of patriotic Americans appear to instead be based overseas, including in Eastern Europe, Thailand, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
The accounts that were exposed wielded real influence. An account called "MAGA NATION" with 392,000+ followers was posting from Eastern Europe, while "Dark MAGA" with 15,000 followers was based in Thailand, "MAGA Scope" with 51,000 followers was in Nigeria, and an "America First" account with 67,000 followers ran from Bangladesh. An Ivanka Trump fan account with nearly a million followers was based in Nigeria.
The economic angle
The accounts could be motivated by X's revenue sharing program for large content creators. Here's how it worked: an overseas creator could earn money by generating engagement from US and Japanese users, who represent X's most lucrative audiences. The location-based reweighting eliminates that incentive by making such earnings negligible.
When one user responded to Bier's announcement that some countries barely have any users, making it hard to earn money from the website, Bier suggested they should write about their day-to-day experiences, adding "Of course, you're welcome to continue chiming in on America politics. We just won't send money overseas for that content".
The approach is sensible from a business perspective. X faces pressure to demonstrate it's addressing the authentic voice problem that has plagued the platform since its acquisition. By making overseas gaming economically pointless rather than legally forbidden, the company avoids the appearance of censorship while removing the motivation to operate deceptive accounts.
The trade-offs
The policy does raise a legitimate question: should an Australian writing insightful analysis of US politics face reduced payments? Bier's stance suggests yes. According to Bier, "X will be a much richer community when there's relevant posts for people in all parts of the world". The implicit argument is that creators should focus on building audiences in their own regions rather than exploiting algorithmic affinity for American partisan content.
Whether this works depends on enforcement and account transparency. Bad actors will adapt; they always do. But at least X is now acknowledging a real problem that the platform was literally paying people to exploit. The new policy starts taking effect on Thursday, March 26.