X Admits Top Accounts Steal Videos, Launches New Editing Tools to Curb Recycled Content
X’s head of product revealed that many viral videos from top accounts are stolen from other users, prompting the platform to introduce a new in-app video editor and recorder to encourage original content.
Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, said in a post on Monday that numerous videos from top accounts on the platform are stolen from other users, sometimes years after they originally went viral. Bier noted that videos account for nearly half of all impressions on X.
To address this recycled content, X is launching a new in-app video editor and recorder, now available on its iOS app. Features include the ability to overlay captions in multiple languages, a green screen option for custom backgrounds using posts or photos from the camera roll, as well as tools for trimming videos and automatically generating captions. The green screen videos resemble those already common on Instagram and TikTok.
This marks X’s latest push for original content. In May, Bier said his team identified several large accounts that were programmatically reuploading others' content to game the platform’s revenue share program. At the time, X said it would allocate impressions from those posts to the original creator. In April, X also cut back payouts to “aggregators” sharing stolen reposts and clickbait.
Now, alongside the new video tools, Bier stated that creators who do not post recycled content will climb faster than other accounts.
