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End of easy money as social media platforms tighten content rules
For local creators, the dilemma is not just regulatory. Accepting government contracts could alienate audiences who see them as independent voices, particularly at a politically sensitive moment.
For years, many social media users have found success online by finding trending content, reposting it quickly, adding catchy captions and riding the engagement wave.
The strategy helped fuel the rise of thousands of meme pages, news aggregation accounts and content creators across platforms such as X, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Many built large audiences – eventually monetising them to generate revenue – without producing much original content of their own.
But the financial success of the model could be in its last days as the world's largest social media companies change their monetisation rules to place greater emphasis on originality.
The changes have significant implications for Kenya's fast-growing community of content creators, many of whom rely on platform payouts, brand partnerships and advertising income.
This week, X announced that it is winding down its existing Revenue Sharing programme and replacing it with a new system called Original Content Rewards.
The new model is designed to reward creators who bring "original ideas, expertise, reporting, creativity and commentary" to the platform. X said qualifying content will include original reporting and analysis, photos and videos created by the user, as well as memes and graphics designed by the creator themselves.
Commentary, which refers to posts reacting to or giving opinions about other posts on X, will still qualify, but only where creators add significant original value.
"If your content regularly incorporates material created by others, you'll need to contribute meaningful original value for it to qualify under our original content guidelines," the company said.
The platform said content copied from another account, downloaded from another platform and re-uploaded, or reposted without substantial transformation will be excluded from monetisation.
The changes are part of X’s effort to address long-standing complaints about users sharing low-value provocative content to boost metrics – also known as engagement farming, plagiarism, content theft and accounts that rely heavily on reposting viral material.
X also introduced stricter conduct requirements, and creators seeking payouts must avoid using bots or automated tools to inflate engagement, refrain from posting misleading content, and stop repeatedly asking followers to like, repost, or otherwise boost engagement metrics.
Similarly, YouTube this week also announced that new creators will face significantly higher thresholds before they can begin earning money from advertising and subscriptions.
Starting February next year, creators will need at least 8,000 qualified watch hours over the previous 12 months or 20 million qualified ‘Shorts’ views over 90 days to qualify for monetisation.
This is an increase from the current requirements of 4,000 watch hours or 10 million views on the platform’s ‘Shorts’ vertical video tab.
The Google-owned platform says the changes are necessary to keep pace with its rapid growth. It says YouTube Shorts now generate more than 200 billion daily views globally, while viewers spend more than a billion hours watching YouTube on television every day.
The update is also likely to reduce the number of creators entering the monetisation programme by requiring them to demonstrate larger and more consistent audiences before earning revenue.
The two tech giants’ announcements follow a similar move by Instagram. In May, the Meta-owned photo and video-sharing platform announced a crackdown on unoriginal content, saying accounts that repeatedly repost content created by others would be less likely to appear in recommendations shown to users who do not already follow them.
Since recommendation algorithms are one of the most important drivers of audience growth, reduced visibility can directly affect a creator's ability to attract new followers and generate income.
The latest changes illustrate how major platforms are increasingly prioritising creators who produce original content over those who primarily aggregate, recycle or republish material from elsewhere.
It has significant implications for Kenya's creator economy, which has expanded rapidly since the Covid-19 pandemic, creating new income opportunities for influencers, content creators, comedians and digital publishers.
Beyond platform payouts from Meta, X, and Google, many creators now earn up to millions of shillings a year through sponsored content, affiliate marketing, product placements and direct sales of goods and services.
According to a recent study by Nairobi-based research and analytics firm OdipoDev, Kenya's leading social media influencers earned a combined Sh296 million from brand-sponsored posts in 2025, contributing to an estimated Sh1.07 billion in total creator economy payouts.
That growth has encouraged the emergence of entire business models built around audience aggregation, including pages that curate viral videos, repost memes, summarise news from media houses or repurpose content from other creators.
But now, accounts that have relied heavily on such content will find it hard to qualify for monetisation, maintain visibility or access platform-generated revenue.
Even where creators retain their audiences, being de-monetised or having their reach reduced will be a dire financial blow.
