Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s social media giant Twitter began paying content creators from the advertisement revenues for the first time, as a number of influencers have shared the new development; however, not everyone is entitled to the amount from the platform.
The influencers — Ian Miles Cheong, Benny Johnson, and Ashley St. Claire — who are said to be high-profile far-right individuals, shared their Twitter earnings before the microblogging site broke the monetisation news.
“Wow. Elon Musk wasn’t kidding. Content monetisation is real,” tweeted a user named End Wokeness, with 1.4 million followers, showing earnings of over $10,400.
People who subscribed to Twitter Blue have got over 5 million tweet impressions each month for the last 3 months are entitled to earnings.
Elon Musk — who is also CEO of SpaceX and Tesla — said that in the first round, a total a $5 million will be paid, and will be cumulative from the month of February onward.
The program is only available in countries where Stripe, a payment platform, supports payouts.
A writer Brian Krassenstein, who has about 750,000 followers, claimed that Twitter paid him $24,305.
SK, another creator with about 230,000 followers, is said to have earned $2,236 from Twitter; political commentator Benny Johnson, with 1.7 million followers, said he earned $9,546.
According to a Babylon Bee writer Ashley St. Clair, she earned $7,153.
According to Twitter’s content monetization standards, sexual content cannot be monetised including “pyramid schemes or get-rich-quick schemes, violence, criminal behaviours, gambling or drugs and alcohol.”
Twitter claimed, in a blog post, that creators’ share of advertising revenue would be based on a calculation of replies to their posts and monthly impressions.
Some nonpolitical contributors expressed frustration with the lack of transparency from the company over the rollout of the program, according to the Washington Post report.
“My tweets have generated 100s of millions of impressions for Twitter every year,” Matt Navarra, a social media strategist who runs the tech-focused newsletter and community Geekout, posted Thursday.
“And I’ve been on the platform for 15+ years. It’s pretty lame there is no payout coming my way. Twitter has never generated any income directly for all the content I have put in to it.”
The development comes days after Musk’s Twitter is facing immense competition from its rival Meta-owned Threats which witnessed millions of sign-ups in just hours after launch.
