South Africa is renewing pressure on TikTok to give local creators access to its Creator Rewards Programme, arguing that creators generating millions of views and helping shape trends on the platform should have access to the same direct monetisation opportunities available in some other markets.

Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi said his department recently raised the issue again during a meeting with a TikTok vice president.

The dispute centres on a relatively simple gap.

South African creators can build large audiences on TikTok, generate substantial engagement and produce content that travels beyond the country's borders, but views generated in South Africa do not currently qualify for TikTok's Creator Rewards Programme because the programme is not available in Africa.

For creators, that means millions of views do not automatically translate into direct payments from TikTok under the programme.

Instead, they generally have to rely on other forms of monetisation, including brand partnerships, sponsorships, livestream gifts and commercial collaborations.

Malatsi argues that this creates an uneven creator economy in which South African users contribute significant value to the platform without having access to the same direct rewards mechanism available in selected countries.

A platform with millions of South African users

The argument is becoming more significant because TikTok is no longer a marginal social platform in South Africa.

DataReportal's analysis of TikTok's advertising tools indicated that the platform could reach 29.1 million South African adults aged 18 and above in late 2025.

That represented approximately 56.4% of the country's internet users based on the relevant advertising audience estimates.

TikTok's potential advertising reach in South Africa also increased by approximately 7.27 million people between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025, according to the same data.

These figures are advertising-reach estimates rather than a direct measurement of monthly active users, but they illustrate the scale of the platform's potential audience in the country.

For creators, that scale matters.

A large local audience gives creators the ability to attract brand partnerships and build communities, while highly successful content can reach audiences outside South Africa.

The question increasingly becomes whether the platform itself should share more directly in the financial value generated by that activity.

The Creator Rewards Programme is the heart of the dispute

TikTok's Creator Rewards Programme was introduced as a way of directly rewarding eligible creators for original content that meets the programme's requirements.

However, access is geographically restricted.

Creators need to be based in an eligible market, meaning simply having a large number of views is not enough to qualify.

This creates a significant difference between two creators who may produce similar content and attract similar audiences.

One may be eligible for TikTok's direct rewards system.

The other may have to rely entirely on external commercial opportunities.

For South African creators, that distinction has become increasingly difficult to ignore as the country's TikTok ecosystem grows.

TikTok already offers other monetisation options

TikTok's position is that creators in markets without the Creator Rewards Programme are not completely excluded from monetisation.

The platform offers other tools, including virtual gifting, which allows viewers to purchase virtual gifts for creators during livestreams and, in some cases, through comments.

Creators can also generate income through partnerships with brands and other commercial arrangements.

But that is not what Malatsi is asking for.

His argument is specifically about access to TikTok's direct rewards model.

From the government's perspective, alternative monetisation tools do not necessarily resolve the underlying disparity if creators in South Africa remain excluded from the same programme available to creators in markets such as the United States and United Kingdom.

That distinction has become central to the debate.

Malatsi has been raising the issue for more than a year

The South African government's latest intervention is not the first time Malatsi has publicly challenged TikTok over creator monetisation.

At TikTok's Safer Internet Summit in Cape Town on March 26, 2025, Malatsi called for the platform's then Creator Fund to be expanded to South Africa.

At the time, he argued that South African creators were contributing to global TikTok trends and that the country had more than 17 million active TikTok users, according to government statements.

TikTok said it would take the feedback into consideration.

But the Creator Rewards Programme remains unavailable in Africa.

The continued absence has allowed the issue to develop from a government request into a broader creator-economy debate.

Creators have increasingly turned the issue into a campaign

By 2026, some South African creators were publicly calling for stronger action against TikTok over the monetisation gap.

Some have advocated boycotts, arguing that creators should not continue supplying the platform with content and engagement without access to its direct rewards programme.

A boycott, however, presents its own dilemma.

TikTok is itself an important distribution channel for creators.

Leaving the platform could mean losing access to audiences, brand opportunities and communities that creators have spent years building.

That leaves creators with a difficult choice: remain on a platform that does not offer the specific monetisation programme they want, or reduce their participation in a platform that may still be one of their most effective audience-building tools.

Why the issue matters beyond TikTok

The disagreement reflects a broader problem emerging across the global creator economy.

Social platforms increasingly rely on creators to generate the content that keeps users engaged.

Creators produce videos, build communities, establish trends and attract audiences.

Platforms then monetise those audiences through advertising, commerce and other services.

The question is how much of that economic value should flow back to the people producing the content.

There is no universal answer.

Different platforms use different revenue-sharing models, and eligibility can depend on factors including geography, advertising markets, regulation and the availability of payment infrastructure.

But geographic exclusion becomes particularly contentious when creators in excluded markets can generate substantial audiences and commercial value.

Africa's creator economy is becoming harder to ignore

South Africa is not alone in facing this issue.

Across Africa, creators increasingly use TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms to build businesses around content.

But access to platform monetisation programmes varies significantly by country.

That can influence where creators choose to focus their audiences, how they structure their businesses and whether they depend on platforms or external revenue sources.

For African creators, brand deals and sponsorships remain particularly important because they can monetise audiences even when a platform's own creator-reward system is unavailable.

But those opportunities are less predictable than a platform-based revenue programme.

A creator can generate millions of views without necessarily securing a brand partnership from every successful piece of content.

TikTok's business incentives are also part of the equation

Opening Creator Rewards in another market is not simply a technical switch.

TikTok's creator monetisation economics depend on advertising markets, eligible content, payment infrastructure, regulatory requirements and the value of the audience being monetised.

That means the company ultimately has to determine whether the economics of a particular market support the programme.

For South Africa, however, the government's argument is that the size and influence of the local creator ecosystem now justify greater inclusion.

The growing advertising audience strengthens that case from a market-size perspective, although advertising reach alone does not establish what TikTok's costs or creator-rewards economics would look like.

The latest meeting puts the ball back in TikTok's court

Malatsi's latest meeting with TikTok leadership shows that the South African government has not dropped the issue.

But it also means the next move is largely with the platform.

TikTok could eventually expand the Creator Rewards Programme to South Africa, modify its eligibility model, introduce another direct creator-payment mechanism or maintain its current approach while relying on tools such as gifting and commercial partnerships.

For South African creators, the central issue remains unchanged.

They want access to a monetisation model that directly rewards eligible content performance on the platform.

For TikTok, the challenge is determining how and where its creator-revenue model can be extended while maintaining the economics and regulatory requirements of its global business.

The South African TikTok debate is ultimately about who captures the value created by the creator economy.

South African creators are building audiences, driving trends and producing content that keeps people on the platform.

But the Creator Rewards Programme remains unavailable in Africa, leaving creators to rely on other revenue streams.

That does not mean South African creators cannot make money on TikTok. They clearly can.

The issue is that the most direct platform-based rewards programme is not currently available to them.

Malatsi's renewed intervention therefore puts a straightforward question to TikTok:

If South African creators are important enough to grow the platform's audience and engagement, when will they have access to the same direct creator-reward opportunities available in some other major markets?

The answer will matter not only to TikTok creators in South Africa, but to the wider question of how global technology platforms distribute economic opportunity across emerging creator markets.