The owner of X, formerly Twitter, Elon Musk, has confirmed plans to charge new users on the platform a fee before they can post.
According to Musk, this has become the only solution to tackle the issue of bots on the platform. The billionaire indicated that several other measures being put in place by X to address the issue have failed.
Replying to an X account that posted about the X policy on new accounts, Musk said:
- “Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots. Current AI (and troll farms) can pass “are you a bot” with ease.”
However, Musk did not provide the details of when this will be implemented and how much the new users will be charged.
Last October, X started charging new unverified users $1 per year in New Zealand and the Philippines. New free users signing up for the platform from these regions could read the posts but could not interact with them.
To post content, like, repost, reply, bookmark, and quote posts, they had to pay a fee. Musk might apply a fee similar to other regions.
Tackling bots on X
Last week, Elon Musk announced that a cleanup to rid the social media platform of bot accounts and trolls had begun and would lead to the suspension of millions of accounts.
In addition, Musk said the company would not only suspend any account found to be bots but would also trace the owners and prosecute them.
This action came on the heels of complaints by users and advertisers that the social media platform is populated by bots, suggesting that the real human accounts are insignificant.
Bots are non-human users on X that do not need any supervision to perform actions such as liking posts of other users, reposting (formerly retweeting) tweets, following and unfollowing other accounts, and even sending direct messages.
- “System purge of bots & trolls underway. Please reply to me or @Xeng. if legitimate accounts are suspended.
- “X Corp will be tracing the people responsible and bringing the full force of the law to bear upon them,” Musk had said.
Musk who was a strong critic of Twitter as a platform for bots and even accused the previous owners of patching up their numbers with bots before the acquisition of the company in 2022, has been celebrating the increasing number of users on X. However, increasing complaints about the activities of bots on the platform have pushed him to take action which may significantly reduce the numbers being celebrated.
