PARIS, FRANCE - MARCH 05: In this photo illustration, the social media application logo, Tik Tok is displayed on the screen of an iPhone on March 05, 2019 in Paris, France. The social network broke the rules for the protection of children's online privacy (COPPA) and was fined $ 5.7 million. The fact TikTok criticized is quite serious in the United States, the platform, which currently has more than 500 million users worldwide, collected data that should not have asked minors. TikTok, also known as Douyin in China, is a media app for creating and sharing short videos. Owned by ByteDance, Tik Tok is a leading video platform in Asia, United States, and other parts of the world. In 2018, the application gained popularity and became the most downloaded app in the U.S. in October 2018. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)

$1 billion TikTok creator fund is being shut down

By Kingsley Odii

TikTok has announced that its $1 billion creator fund, which was introduced in 2020, will be coming to an end on December 16th, 2023.

The fund allowed creators in the US, UK, Germany, and France to monetize their content on the platform, but TikTok spokesperson Maria Jung has confirmed that these creators will no longer be able to do so through the original fund. However, TikTokers in Italy and Spain will not be affected by this change.

Since its introduction, the creator fund has faced criticism from influencers and content creators due to the low payouts, with some earning only a few dollars for millions of views. This made it impossible for individuals to sustain a living solely from the creator fund. It remains unclear whether TikTok has paid out all of the promised $1 billion, as the company did not respond to inquiries regarding this matter.

To address this issue, TikTok introduced the Creativity Program in February of this year, providing a new monetization method that promised higher payouts for popular creators. Unlike the original fund, the Creativity Program requires creators to make videos longer than one minute, deviating from TikTok’s signature short clip format.

Additionally, earnings under the new program are based on views and other engagement metrics, rather than being distributed from a fixed pool of money. According to Maria Jung, creators have the potential to earn 20 times the amount they were making under the original fund by participating in the Creativity Program.

The conclusion of the original fund was expected, as it was initially limited to a three-year commitment with a predetermined amount of funds to distribute. However, creators in the US, UK, Germany, and France who are part of the original fund will have the opportunity to roll over to the Creativity Program.

Pared to other platforms like YouTube or Twitch, earning money on TikTok has always been more unpredictable. However, YouTube has cleverly addressed the low payouts issue by introducing ad revenue sharing on Shorts, its TikTok competitor, offering creators an alternate platform to monetize their content.

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