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Elon Musk says that new users will be charged a small fee for three months
Billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, will now charge new users “a small fee” if they wish to post, like or reply to tweets. Musk has said that the policy aims at curbing the menace of fake accounts and spam bots, adding that new users would be able “to do write actions for free” only after three months.
“Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots,” posted @elonmusk, added: “Current AI (and troll farms) can pass “are you a bot” with ease.”
Musk’s tweet followed an official announcement on X Daily News, the handle on the social media network that posts X-related news and updates for the Twitterati.
“The policy was initially being tested to help reduce spam and improve the experience for users overall,” the @xDaily post said, adding that text content of the website has been revised.
In sync with the X policy of not revealing all details at one go, no specifics have yet been divulged about when the platform plans to introduce the pay scheme for new users, and how much the “small fee” might be.
Replying to a user’s query, Musk said that new users would, however, be able to post after three months of creating an account without paying a fee.
“Part of what makes X special is that anyone can just post without paying. We definitely need to stop the bots, but what about having the option to pay OR do something extremely computationally expensive (like mining some dogecoin or something),” wrote user @WholeMarsBlog.
To this, Musk replied: “That is way harder than paying a tiny fee. This is only for new users. They will be able to do write actions for free after 3 months.”
The new policy is already operational in New Zealand and the Philippines. In October 2023, X started charging new unverified users in these countries an annual fee of $1. New users who signed up for free, on the other hand, were allowed to read posts but they did not have right to post, repost, reply, like, bookmark or quote. Onlookers expect a similar strategy on the part of Musk and X when the scheme is introduced globally.