X Is Finally Going After Its Own Content Theft Problem

For years, the dirty secret of X's creator economy was simple: steal someone else's video, slap your watermark on it, and collect the monetization check. The platform let it happen. Now, apparently, it won't.

X head of product Nikita Bier announced on May 23, 2026 that the platform had identified accounts programmatically reuploading content from smaller creators to game the revenue-share system. According to Bier's post, X is now redirecting impressions entirely to the original creators — meaning the thieves don't just get penalized, they get zeroed out.

The Names Getting Hammered

Three major accounts have been publicly called out.

Disclose.tv — nearly 2 million followers — was fully demonetized. The trigger: the account stole a video shot by spaceflight reporter Adam Bernstein of NASASpaceflight showing Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket during a failed mission. They didn't just repost it. They cropped out Bernstein's watermark. Bier confirmed the penalty to Forbes on May 29, 2026: "Creator has been deactivated from monetization for cropping out attribution."

Forbes also notes that Disclose.tv describes itself on its website as a Germany-based "aggregator of breaking news" — and has been labeled a "fake news" outlet by PolitiFact.

Mario Nawfal — 3.5 million followers, CEO of crypto consulting firm IBC Group, host of what he calls the largest live discussion show on X — got his revenue slashed by 90% in the previous pay cycle, according to Bier's direct warning posted May 23. The specific offense: reuploading an ABC News video of a reporter reacting to gunshots outside the White House, instead of using X's native Quote or Video Reshare feature. Bier warned Nawfal publicly: "We're running out of room to reduce it more."

Nawfal claimed his account always uses the reshare option but that it doesn't work for longer tweets, according to Business Insider. A Community Note immediately attached to that response listed three recent examples disproving it. Elon Musk also unfollowed Nawfal shortly after the incident, per Big Tech Alert on May 26.

Massimo — the science curator account @Rainmaker1973 with 4.3 million followers — was demonetized after Bier accused the account of reuploading thousands of stolen videos over six months. Bier's words, according to Forbes: "You cannot get more shameless than this. This is your last day in the creator program." Massimo fired back, claiming smaller accounts had asked him to repost their content for visibility.

What Mainstream Coverage Is Leaving Out

The platform allowed this problem to fester for years.

PetaPixel documented a specific case last year where astrophotographer Paul M. Smith had his video of the Geminids meteor shower stolen by multiple large accounts — including Massimo. X did nothing. Smith had to pursue DMCA notices himself to get the content removed. When he tried to call out Massimo's account directly, Massimo blocked him.

PetaPixel also reported that Musk previously gave Massimo what amounted to platform immunity because it was one of his favorite accounts. The same executive now championing a crackdown on content theft was, not long ago, protecting one of the biggest alleged offenders.

The ZeroHedge and Forbes coverage frames this mostly as a positive enforcement story. That framing isn't wrong, but it's incomplete. A more honest read is that X built a monetization system that rewarded theft by design — pay creators for engagement, then fail to verify who actually created what — and is now scrambling to patch it.

Bier himself acknowledged in a separate post, cited by Forbes, that accounts with "4 million followers downloading-and-reuploading 600 videos per day" were the problem. That's not a bug someone slipped past the filters. That's an industrial-scale operation running openly on the platform for months, at minimum.

Other Cases

Dom Lucre — real name Dominick McGee — was also demonetized and complained publicly about it. Bier said the reason was reposting AI-generated war videos, a separate but related category of junk content flooding the platform.

X's monetization system requires a paid subscription to access. The revenue share rewards users with large followings who generate high engagement. That structure created a straightforward financial incentive to accumulate followers fast and post whatever gets clicks — original or not.

What Happens Now

The enforcement actions are real, specific, and named. That's more than most platforms do. Instagram plays whack-a-mole with content thieves too, but rarely calls anyone out by name with revenue consequences attached.

X is correcting a failure it created and tolerated. Original creators — journalists, photographers, scientists, reporters like Adam Bernstein who put themselves in front of rockets — were getting robbed while accounts gaming the system raked in cash. The platform looked the other way until it became a PR embarrassment.