The End of the Era of Covert Advertising: New Regulations X and the Logic of Global Platform Business Governance

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Authors: Bbo I XHunt Operations Team; Amelia, Denise I Biteye Content Team

On March 1, 2026, Twitter will significantly update its "Declare paid promotion" rules, and accounts that fail to disclose commercial promotions in compliance with regulations will face severe penalties starting next week.

This move was initially interpreted by outsiders as a prelude to Twitter creating its own official ad-sharing system, even triggering widespread panic within the Web3 community. However, with the official clarification of the Crypto promotion rule blunder, X's true intentions became clear: compared to the already well-established commercial ad-sharing system in China, X's move came relatively late. Its fundamental purpose is not only to guide third parties to use the X Ads official advertising system compliantly, but also to allow ordinary users to intuitively distinguish between ads, purify their timeline experience, and thus reshape a healthy content ecosystem.

For KOLs and practitioners in various fields, understanding the red lines of the new regulations has become an absolute prerequisite for safe monetization and long-term operation.

This article will analyze the following aspects in depth:

• The new regulations and penalties clarify which behaviors will be judged as commercial promotion and the consequences of violations.

• Cryptocurrency Promotion Misconceptions: Clarifying Recent Crypto Ban Rumors and Real Regional Restrictions.

• Global Platform Benchmarking Analysis: Comparing the commercialization evolution paths of platforms such as Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and TikTok.

• The underlying technology of AI content moderation: revealing how platforms automatically identify hidden ads and the requirements for AIGC content.

I. Deconstructing Twitter's New Rules: Not Banning Ads, But Rebuilding Trust

Twitter's new rules are not a hard landing, but rather a tiered governance system based on the principle of transparency.

1️⃣ What is officially recognized "paid promotion"?

According to Twitter's official Paid Partnerships Policy, paid promotion refers to third-party brands offering compensation or rewards to users (such as influencers or content creators) to promote their products or services. This covers the following four common scenarios:

• The product or service is a gift from the brand owner or on behalf of the brand owner.

• Creators receive monetary or in-kind compensation for promoting these products or services.

• These products or services can generate commissions for creators from sales (e.g., through distribution links or discount codes).

• Creators have commercial agreements with these products or services (such as serving as brand ambassadors).

Core disclosure requirements: All paid promotional content posted organically must include clear and prominent language (such as "Ad" or "Promoted Content") to indicate its commercial nature. Furthermore, the promoted product, service, or call to action (CTA) must be clear and cannot require users to click on additional links to learn more.

2️⃣ Irregular "tiered enforcement options"

When determining penalties for violating this policy, X will comprehensively consider various factors, including the severity of the violation and the individual's past violation records, and will adopt a tiered enforcement approach:

• Removal and restrictions after the fact: The platform may require violators to delete the offending content and run it in "read-only mode" for a period of time before they can repost it.

• Multiple violations will result in suspension (banning) of the account.

• Malicious accounts will be suspended immediately: Accounts that exist solely for the purpose of violating paid partner policies will be suspended immediately.

• In addition, the platform also provides an appeal channel, which users can submit if they believe their account has been wrongly executed.

II. A Terrifying 12 Hours: Crypto Promotion Blunder and Regional Compliance

At the very beginning of the new regulations, the X policy page showed that "cryptocurrency" was directly listed as a category prohibited from being promoted by paid partners. This caused a major upheaval in the Web3 community, with many KOLs tossing and turning at night, anxious that their livelihoods were being taken away.

However, this was just a false alarm. Nikita Bier, the product manager for X, has publicly confirmed that the previously applied blanket restriction was an error. The terms were updated in June 2024 and were not the latest version. The platform has since fixed the issue.

According to the latest policy update, cryptocurrencies have not been banned globally, but rather have entered a compliance disclosure status with regional restrictions. Specifically:

• Regional restrictions: Currently, paid cryptocurrency promotions are prohibited in Australia, the European Union, and the United Kingdom (due to local financial regulatory laws). X has not imposed any bans on other countries or regions.

• Mandatory Transparency Disclosure: While promotion channels remain open, KOLs accepting orders in non-restricted countries must absolutely adhere to the principle of transparency – they must clearly indicate the collaboration in their posts. Past practices of covertly promoting products, without tags, and disguising themselves as personal investment insights – known as "natural flow advertising" – will face an extremely high risk of account suspension for violations.

• Official X Ads remains the choice for large organizations: For large financial projects that need to cross regions or do not meet the conditions for personal KOL promotion, they can still submit an application to the official X Ads (promotion post) and obtain "pre-authorization approval" before making regular traffic purchases.

In short, the KOL marketing channel still exists in the Crypto industry, but it has officially bid farewell to the era of unregulated practices and fully entered a new compliant phase of transparent branding.

III. Three Categories of Global Content Platform Business Governance

Looking at X's new regulations within the context of global platform evolution, it's not sudden; it's simply a belated piece of the puzzle. In terms of governance models, global content platforms can be categorized into three types: those with mandatory official matchmaking, those with mandatory disclosure plus non-mandatory matchmaking, and those with only mandatory disclosure.

1️⃣ Mandatory official matchmaking - Businesses must operate within a closed loop

The core logic of these platforms is that all business collaborations must go through officially established channels, with transactions, content review, and data tracking all managed in a closed loop. The platform bears joint liability for commercial content, therefore the entire process must be under its control.

Mainland China is a typical example of this model.

• Weibo: Commercial advertisements are required to be published and labeled through official channels such as "Micro Tasks" or "Jubao Pen". A crackdown is being launched on the proliferation of marketing accounts and fraudulent traffic manipulation, with tiered penalties including traffic restrictions, point deductions, and account bans.

• Xiaohongshu: All influencer commercial endorsements must go through the official "Dandelion Platform" to strictly crack down on "fake product recommendations." If a post is not reported and the commercial relationship is not disclosed, its reach will be directly limited, and in serious cases, the account's credit score will be deducted.

• Douyin (TikTok): It boasts the most complete business system. It has established the "Massive Star Map" system, along with a "Product Selection Plaza" and a traffic distribution system. Creators who want to sell products or accept orders must link their content through the official product selection center. For unreported private orders (hidden advertising), Douyin's AI review system will intercept them through frame-by-frame video scanning and link analysis.

• Zhihu: Launches "Zhi+" and commercial plugins to integrate advertising into the platform ecosystem. Zhihu is cracking down hard on advertorials that are "disguised as hardcore reviews." Once reported by users or judged by the system as illegal advertising, the account's "salt value" and weight will be greatly reduced, and it may even face permanent ban.

• Kuaishou: By forming a closed loop with e-commerce through "Quick Orders," it creates an integrated system of "content-transaction-revenue sharing." Kuaishou emphasizes the authenticity of the "old friend economy" and takes a two-pronged approach to combating false advertising and undisclosed marketing content, including traffic suspension and e-commerce permission downgrading.

• Bilibili has established the "Spark Platform," requiring content creators (UPs) with at least 10,000 followers to join. All non-private domain commercial orders must be processed through the platform for contract signing, content review, and settlement. Those who do not join the platform will not be able to receive advertising requests distributed by the platform.

In summary, the operating model of mainland Chinese platforms is very clear: commerce must occur within the platform's ecosystem. From content creation to transactions, from initial interest to purchase, the entire process is closed-loop and fully controllable. There are virtually no boundaries between content and commerce.

2️⃣ Mandatory Disclosure + Non-Mandatory Matching - The platform provides the stage, and everyone is free to participate.

These platforms operate on a "soft closed loop" model: they provide official matchmaking tools (creator marketplaces) but do not mandate their use; brands and creators can still connect through external channels such as email and private messages. However, regardless of the channel used for collaboration, commercial disclosure is an absolute red line – failure to properly label content constitutes a violation.

• YouTube launched the "BrandConnect" platform, integrating the entire creator collaboration process. The newly launched "Open Call" feature allows brands to publish creative briefs and solicit video proposals from over 3 million creators. It also established a mandatory disclosure mechanism that "includes paid promotion." YouTube's logic is: long-form video users value credibility; tagging won't destroy traffic, but deception will.

• TikTok launched the "TikTok Creator Marketplace," bringing together top influencers from various verticals worldwide and supporting standardized processes such as data screening, direct invitations, and commission sharing. However, the official matchmaking platform is not mandatory – brands and creators can still connect directly via email and private messages. Regardless of the channel used for collaboration, the disclosure of commercial content is a mandatory red line: all brand collaboration content must be published through the official invitation link and must include the paid partner tag; otherwise, it will not receive For You recommendation traffic.

• Instagram: It established a "Creator Marketplace," supporting filtering by country, content category, number of followers, and other dimensions, and offered a "priority messaging" feature to improve response rates. It also launched a "Paid Partnership Label," requiring creators to clearly indicate their brand collaborations at the top of their tweets. Instagram has proven that even with an advertising label, users will still pay if the content is engaging.

• Facebook has launched "Brand Collabs Manager" and "Creator Marketplace" to help brands search for, filter, and connect with creators, providing official first-hand data (number of followers, number of accounts reached, engagement rate, etc.) and supporting filtering by country, age, interest tags, and other dimensions. However, the official matching tools are not mandatory, but disclosure is a mandatory requirement. Facebook has clarified that even when using the built-in Branded Collabs Manager, manual disclosure is still required.

3️⃣ Mandatory disclosure only - the matchmaking ecosystem is still in its infancy

These platforms have only reached the step of "mandatory disclosure" so far. Official matchmaking channels have either not yet been launched or are still in the early stages of exploration.

• X (Twitter): This update mandates that all paid promotions must be labeled "Paid Promotion," or face account suspension. While Musk also pays content creators, there is currently no official matching system similar to "Star Map" or "Creator Marketplace."

• Threads: As a direct competitor of X, it was extremely restrained in its early commercialization efforts. It actively suppressed hard advertising and strictly guarded against bot-driven, mass-marketing tactics, attempting to win back users disappointed with X through a sense of "purity." It has not yet launched a fully developed commercial integration system.

💡 Key Insight: Why do Chinese platforms tend to enforce closed-loop systems, while overseas platforms (including TikTok) only use mandatory disclosure and cannot enforce closed-loop systems?

1. The underlying legal frameworks differ: China has extremely strict entry and regulatory requirements for internet advertising. Platforms, as the primary responsible parties, must bear joint liability for the content. To reduce the risk of violations, the best approach is to "close the loop" of all commercial activities, with all content reviewed before publication. However, the core legal logic of the United States (FTC) and the European Union is the "duty of disclosure." As long as you clearly inform users that this is an advertisement through tags (such as #ad, #sponsored), the platform typically does not interfere with how you settle accounts or sign contracts privately.

2. Antitrust red lines: In European and American markets, if platforms take a mandatory intervention approach, they risk encountering two types of risks: antitrust investigations and allegations of restricting market competition. Regulators may deem the platform to be monopolizing advertising, excluding third-party agents, and restricting creators' freedom. This is considered high-risk behavior in both the US and the EU, which is why TikTok, incubated in China, can only offer a Creator Marketplace but cannot mandate its use.

✍️Key point: Therefore, third-party matchmaking platforms will coexist with content platforms for a long time and will be indispensable.

Firstly, Western laws do not allow platforms to form absolute monopolies; secondly, even in China's highly closed-loop environment, there are still gaps for survival. For example, although Xiaohongshu and Douyin have official platforms like Dandelion and Xingtu, a large number of third-party data analysis and matchmaking intermediaries are still active.

IV. AI Review: Intelligent Recognition and Mandatory Tagging of AIGC Content

With so much content on Twitter, it's impossible for the platform to rely on human review. The product manager has stated that the team only has about 30 people, so they definitely don't have the manpower. Therefore, detecting hidden ads is primarily done using AI.

1️⃣ The principle and application of AI in identifying hidden ads

The platform's AI model primarily identifies inappropriate content through cross-referencing of multi-dimensional features.

• Text semantic analysis (NLP): Accurately identify whether specific praise, token promotion phrases, and "call to action" (such as "buy now" or "click to register") appear frequently in tweets.

• Link and Behavior Tracing: Automatically detects whether specific affiliate links or invitation codes are included, and determines the commercial nature of the redirected domain.

• Account Relationship Graph: Analyzes whether the account exhibits abnormal interaction frequency or association characteristics with a specific brand matrix. If a tweet is determined to have extremely high commercial promotion confidence but is not tagged, the system will automatically trigger penalties.

2️⃣ Mandatory tagging of AIGC content

In addition to identifying hidden ads, Twitter is also working on regulating AI-generated content alongside its commercialization efforts. X is developing AI-generated hashtags, and in the future, failing to actively tag AI-generated text and images will likely violate platform rules.

This move directly targets the rampant AI-generated spam marketing accounts on Twitter. It not only protects users' right to know but also leverages regulations to compel creators to provide genuine "human insight and authentic narrative value." Low-quality AI-paraphrased content will be filtered out, while high-quality, vertical information will gain more exposure.

In the current climate where government agencies are using AI for stringent regulation, ordinary users and operators can also leverage AI tools to counter surveillance. With XHunt's "Tweet AI Analysis" feature, AI can generate reports on the promotional tendencies of tweets.

In conclusion: Holding the imperial sword in hand, yet the sword of Damocles hangs over one's head.

Platform development often follows the same path: in the early stages, it relies on the activity of creators and users to grow wildly; in the later stages, it relies on rules and commercialization to establish order; and when the platform becomes large enough, the issue of the boundaries of governance and power will emerge.

The shift of X from unregulated growth to commercialized norms is hard not to recall the great migration of 2022: a large number of Chinese encrypted users left Weibo, carrying the frustration and distrust of being banned, and flocked to a seemingly more open public square.

Back then, Twitter was like a huge public square, big enough for anyone to shout out their opinions.

Twitter is like a great emperor now, so great that it bans accounts at the drop of a hat, just like an emperor beheading a traitorous minister at the drop of a hat.

It's perfectly reasonable for platforms to establish rules. An ecosystem can't grow big without rules.

But always remember: a platform is not an emperor who reigns supreme over its users. While wielding the sword of authority, it also carries the sword of Damocles overhead.

After all, nothing lasts forever. Once you lose the hearts of the people, you lose everything.