In a significant move aimed at reducing spam and bot activity on Elon Musk’s social networking site, X, the company has introduced a new program that will require new, unverified accounts to subscribe for a $1 annual fee in order to post and interact with other users. The company stated that this initiative is currently undergoing testing in New Zealand and the Philippines as part of its preparation for a global rollout.
It’s worth noting that this change will not impact existing unverified users on the platform. Those new users who opt not to subscribe at the signup stage will be restricted to “read-only” actions, such as reading posts, watching videos, and following accounts.
At the point of registration, new users will be presented with several subscription options, including the $1 fee, X Premium, and Verified Organizations.
Contrary to the perception that this move is driven by profit motives, X clarified that its primary objective is to combat spam effectively. In their statement, the company emphasized that the $1 annual subscription fee is not intended as a profit driver. It represents a measure to tackle bot activity and spam while preserving platform accessibility at a reasonable cost.
“This new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform, and bot activity while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. It is not a profit driver. And so far, subscription options have proven to be the main solution that works at scale. This will evaluate a potentially powerful measure to help us combat bots and spammers on X, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. Within this test, existing users are not affected,” the company stated.
The idea of introducing a subscription fee was first hinted at by Elon Musk during a live-streamed conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, last month. While he did not specify the exact amount at that time, Musk had indicated his intention to implement a monthly subscription fee.
The decision to opt for a $1 annual fee is an improvement over the initial plan of a “small monthly payment of a few dollars” mentioned by Musk during his conversation with Netanyahu. Responding to concerns about the prevalence of bots on the platform, Musk stated, “This is actually a super tough problem. And it’s probably really the single most important reason that we’re moving to have a small monthly payment for the use of X.”
Musk’s reasoning behind the fee is to significantly increase the cost for bots. He explained, “But if somebody has to pay, you know, a few dollars or something, some minor amount, the effective cost of bots is very high. And then you also have to get a new payment method every time you have a new bot.
So that actually had the constraint of how many different credit cards you can find even on the dark web or whatever. And we’re actually going to come up with a lower tier pricing. We just want it to be a small amount of money. This is a longer discussion, but in my view, this is actually the only defense against vast armies of bots, because as the AI gets very, very good, it’s actually able to pass these sorts of CAPTCHA tests better than humans.”
As X Network continues to combat spam and enhance the user experience on its platform, the introduction of the $1 annual subscription fee represents a significant step towards achieving this goal while ensuring access for legitimate users.