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LOS ANGELES — On Thursday, Twitter announced that it will begin sharing ad revenue with content creators on its platform for the first time. However, the offer does not apply to all YouTubers.
The first beneficiaries appear to be a number of high-profile far-right influencers, who tweeted ahead of the announcement how much they’ve made from the scheme. Ian Miles Cheong, Benny Johnson and Ashley St. Claire all announced their earnings
“Wow. Elon Musk wasn’t kidding. Content monetization is real,” tweeted an anonymous account called End Wokeness, which has 1.4 million followers, accompanied by a screenshot showing over $10,400 in earnings.
So far, the influencers who have publicly announced that they are part of the program are prominent figures on the right. Andrew Tate, for example, who was recently released from prison on rape and human trafficking charges, revealed that he received over $20,000 via Twitter.
“This is a nice turn from being banned by Twitter 1.0 for almost two years, to getting paid to post. Thanks @elonmusk,” tweeted far-right influencer Rogan O’Handley, known as DC Draino.
But not all prominent right-wing Twitter contributors appeared to be part of the program. When asked if she was part of the program, @libsoftiktok creator Chaya Raichik replied with a wink, claiming that her relationship with Musk is thriving. When asked if she received payments under the program, she did not respond.
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment that was emailed to him at Twitter and at SpaceX, another company he owns.
“I think there are some conservative content creators who are unhappy,” said Kris Ruby, a conservative influencer and president of Ruby Media Group. “It doesn’t seem even. I don’t think the playing field is level.”
She said some of the rights who were not accepted into the program despite meeting all the criteria were venting privately. “Most conservatives don’t want to take Elon’s wrath and what happens when you criticize him,” she said. “We saw that he does not apply the terms of use equally everywhere.”
Twitter claimed in a blog postthat creators’ share of advertising revenue would be based on a calculation of responses to their posts and monthly impressions. The program is only available in countries where Stripe, a payments platform, supports payouts, and recipients must pay for Twitter Blue, the platform’s monthly subscription service, to be eligible.
Not all YouTubers who want to make money will be able to do so. Creators applying to the program must pass a “human test” and there is currently no open application for those interested in participating.
Some non-political participants expressed frustration at the company’s lack of transparency in launching the program.
“My tweets have generated hundreds of millions of impressions on Twitter each year,” says Matt Navarra, a social media strategist who runs the tech-focused newsletter and community Geekout. posted on Thursday. “And I’ve been on the platform for more than 15 years. It’s quite a pity that I don’t get a payout. Twitter never generated any direct revenue from all the content I put there.”
Former Twitter employees who worked on creator-focused products have expressed skepticism about the launch, with some calling it a PR stunt. A former Twitter exec who worked on creator partnerships and asked not to be named to avoid retaliation said, “Every type of content monetization that we’ve done in the past has been based on a revenue model.” For a certain subset of creators that he wanted to placate, it just feels out of the blue.”
The former Twitter exec also expressed doubts about Twitter’s revised metrics, including impressions. “The numbers are completely wrong,” she said. “It’s all completely made up. It really feels like they’re writing random checks to people they like, which isn’t a sustainable strategy for creatives.”
Latasha James, a full-time YouTube creator in Detroit, said Twitter is too volatile for content creators to invest much time in. “As a YouTuber, I look for monetization opportunities with brands and platforms that appear well-funded and stable,” she said. “Twitter has been the opposite of stable over the past year, so I would definitely shy away from relying on their monetization program for a living.”
Others agreed that even if Musk were to offer every YouTuber a payout, the site’s right turn would discourage them from posting anything.
“He censors utterances he doesn’t like and amplifies utterances he makes, and he chooses the people he wants to give a voice to on the platform and silences others,” said Rathbone DeBuys, a musician and content -Creators from New Orleans monetized on TikTok. “It seems like there is no point or purpose to it. He arbitrarily decided that these are the people who are going to make money from the platform because they are [his] Friends.”
“I try to respect my values in my company, and I feel like the things that Elon has done don’t align with my values,” said Lu Levy, YouTube content creator and digital business coach for content creator. “…on other platforms, especially YouTube, I’m already getting such good monetization that it’s just not worth going against what I believe in.”
The timing of Musk’s announcement follows Twitter competitor Instagram’s announcement that its Twitter-like app Threads had surpassed 100 million signups in less than a week, making it the fastest-growing app ever. Jordan Lintz, owner of HighKey Enterprises, a public relations firm, said he thinks Threads should align with Twitter’s new monetization offerings. “User retention of threads will eventually wear off,” Lintz said. “I think whoever offers the best monetization will win the customer retention race. This is something Threads may need to investigate.”
Jules Terpak, a content creator and digital culture expert, said the prospect of making money from posts is enticing for someone who tweets a lot, but she’s curious to see how Musk handles sensitive issues like content theft and bots become. She also wonders if this new monetization system is sustainable given Twitter’s struggles to maintain ad revenue.
“As soon as I see these amounts, my first question is how can this be sustained,” she said. “The track record to date under Elon’s ownership is that a lot of things that sound very pretty when you then see them in action have these more negative nuances.”
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