Meta promises greater reach and payouts for original creators on Facebook

Creators who publish original content on Facebook will receive greater reach and more opportunities to earn, while accounts that recycle other people's videos will see their distribution reduced, Meta has said.

In an update published Friday, the company said it is prioritising original posts across Facebook Feed and Reels while pushing down videos that simply repost or lightly edit someone else's work.

The move could affect a large ecosystem of aggregation and clipping accounts that share segments from podcasts and livestreams – a strategy widely used to drive views and push short-form content across social platforms.

Meta said views and watch time for original Reels roughly doubled in the second half of 2025 compared with the same period the year before. Payout opportunities for original creators are also growing as the company expands distribution across Feed and Reels.

Under updated guidelines, Reels that include third-party clips can still qualify as original where the creator adds something genuinely new, such as fresh analysis or commentary. But posts that simply repost someone else’s video, or make only minor edits like borders or background music, will be shown to fewer people or excluded from recommendations.

"Creators who transform content with creativity will be eligible for recommendation in Reels and Feed and may benefit from increased distribution," the company said.

Meta is also testing improvements to its content protection tool that will help creators detect impersonation and report copycat accounts more easily. Creators will be able to appeal originality decisions, the company added.

The scale of the problem is significant. Meta removed more than 20 million accounts impersonating large creators in 2025, and said impersonation reports related to major creators have fallen 33%.

The update is part of a wider effort by Meta to clean up Facebook's content ecosystem. Last April, the company began limiting the reach of accounts using spam networks or fake engagement. Three months later, it expanded the crackdown to pages that repeatedly repost other creators' videos.

The shift also reflects growing competition for professional creators. Earlier this month, X introduced "exclusive threads", allowing creators to place parts of conversations behind a paywall. Platforms are increasingly offering tools and incentives to encourage creators to publish original work directly on their services.

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