Reports are surfacing that TikTok has told users of the platform today that it is shutting down its original Creator Fund. The fund was a $1 billion pot that paid out to creators from the US, UK, France, and Germany who published content on the platform. Creators based in Italy and Spain are reportedly not affected by the change at the moment.
The program, which originally launched in 2020, has come under fire from creators saying that content would only receive low payouts, even for videos with millions of views. Recently, TikTok announced a new monetization scheme titled the Creativity Program, requiring videos longer than a minute to be eligible but with reported larger payouts.
Given that the Creator Fund was originally announced to be paid out over three years, it's the right time for it to be phased out. The blog post announcing the Creativity Program Beta has since been updated today, confirming that the program will fully replace the original Creator Fund and enrolled creators can move over to the new program.
TikTok has been continuing to try and get creators to stay with the platform, with various plans and schemes that it has put in place to financially reward users such as the Effect Creator Rewards fund that launched in May this year. This move is the latest in its ever-evolving plans to get users to stay with the platform in the face of various bans.
The news follows a recent announcement by Meta, which continues its push with Instagram Reels to encourage creators to publish content on its platform. YouTube also made adjustments to its partner program in June of this year, supporting users who published Shorts on the site as well. The space for short-form content remains competitive with all the major players fighting for position as the short-form site.
Source: The Verge
