Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, many controversial users who were previously banned from the platform have been allowed back on and are flourishing. Users such as Andrew Tate have regained a platform to spout his harmful views to millions of users. But, while it may feel satisfying to troll such users, engaging with their tweets actually earns them money. Here’s why: Twitter recently announced it was paying out thousands of dollars in advertising revenue to users to “benefit” from their high engagement on tweets, earning more money the higher their engagement is. As part of Twitter’s Ad Revenue sharing program, users require “5M+ Tweet impressions in each month for the last 3 months”. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter On Thursday (13 July), some eligible users began receiving notifications of how much money they would receive. The highest earner, Dogecoin co-founder Billy Markus, known online as Shibetoshi Nakamoto, earned $37,050. Tate also revealed in a tweet that he earned $20,379 from ad revenue generated in the reply threads under his posts. The money comes from the ad revenue generated in their replies below the content they post on the platform, and is paid out via the Stripe account that the user registered for creator subscriptions with. Twitter staffer, Patrick Traughber, said: “Excited to start sending our first payments to creators for ads revenue sharing today. “Creators are the lifeblood of this platform, and it's great to see so many creators I follow getting paid today. The program will be expanding soon—more to come!” The cash payouts come just a week after Meta launched its rival text-based platform, Threads. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Reddit will start paying some people for their posts on the site. The new announcement comes after a run of controversies at the site. And it also follows changes at X/Twitter that saw users who pay the site’s monthly membership fee receive a share of the ad revenue from their tweets. Reddit’s new system will work slightly differently – with users able to donate money for posts that they find particularly useful. It comes with new changes to Reddit’s “Gold” system, which has long allowed users to give people special rewards for posts. That has traditionally given people virtual rewards including “Reddit Gold”. Now, Reddit will be getting rid of that system, and the existing gold will not transfer over. Instead, people will be able to buy golden upvotes: at a price of around $2 each. And that gold will be worth actual money. As on X, users will have to satisfy certain requirements before they can take part in the “Contributor Program”. They need to be at least 18, live in an eligible location, and have received enough upvotes – and if they have even more “karma”, as Reddit refers to feedback from users, they will receive more money for each gold they are awarded. There will be other limits on the way the system works. Users will have to earn at least 10 gold to be able to cash it out, at which point they will be given either 90 cents or $1 for their contributions. On X, the revenue sharing system has led to some controversy, with users writing intentionally inflammatory or misleading posts in an attempt to get more engagement and thereby drive up their revenues. Reddit says that users will be checking users’ posts to ensure they are abiding by its rules. The new system comes after a run of controversies at Reddit, including the loss of the old Reddit gold, which angered some users. That came soon after an even bigger outrage at the site, when the company announced it would start charging apps and bots to use its API, which led to a number of popular clients shutting down and protests that included many of the world’s biggest forums shutting down.

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Kim Kardashian and Rylan Clark are among some of the celebrities to have signed up for the new social media site Threads. The Meta app, from the company behind Facebook and Instagram, has a text-style format which encourages users to post updates and join public discourse. Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader Dalai Lama also signed up to the newly launched platform. Former Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two presenter Clark kept his first update short with a photo captioned: “Get ya threads out for the ladddsss.” Chef Gordon Ramsay, known for his Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares series, said in his post: “Is this where I find the lamb sauce?” Colombian pop singer Shakira already has one million followers on the app, whilst reality TV star and businesswoman Kardashian has one and a half million, despite a lack of posts on her profile. TV personality and model Khloe Kardashian, who is Kim’s sister, is also on the platform and posted a photo with the caption: “Oh hi my little threaders”. Other celebrities such as Paris Hilton, former One Direction members Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik, The Last Of Us star Bella Ramsey, Dragons’ Den panellists Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett and former Big Brother presenter Davina McCall have also signed up. Also setting up account were American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, radio DJ Chris Moyles, Little Mix singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock, British singer Louise Redknapp, American rapper Jack Harlow and The Help actress Jessica Chastain. The site is connected to Instagram so usernames and verification checks can carry over so celebrities can make the move to Threads easily. Brands and companies including streaming platform Netflix, clothing retailer Pretty Little Thing and supermarket Aldi have also joined the app. Threads posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos of up to five minutes in length. On Meta’s website, the company says: “Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas.” Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, which is also text based and allows posts of up to 280 characters. The South African-born billionaire announced at the weekend that his social media platform would be temporarily limiting the number of tweets people can read in a day, as thousands of users reported problems accessing the site. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Mastercard helping banks predict scams before money leaves customers’ accounts Art historian helps build new Assassin’s Creed game after son’s suggestion Twitter to stop TweetDeck access for unverified users

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