AI-generated melodramatic threads are becoming increasingly prominent on X, often posing as true first-person accounts of betrayal, injustice and eventual vindication. Their creators can earn money through X’s Creative Revenue Sharing programme, creating an incentive to produce highly emotive content that attracts clicks, replies and impressions despite being misleading or fabricated.

The stories commonly follow a formula: an innocent narrator is wronged, then evidence or a dramatic intervention exposes and humiliates the antagonist. To qualify for X’s payments, creators need Premium membership, 500 verified followers and five million impressions over three months; X has separately acted against alleged AI-content fraud, news aggregators and stolen posts, but has not publicly clarified its approach to these fictional AI stories.