Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter in 2022 and later changed the name of the social media platform to X, is planning a major change that will require new users on X to shell out some cash to post on the platform.
The billionaire replied to a tweet on X on April 15 that revealed that there was speculation that the social media platform was planning to charge new users an annual fee before they are able to perform actions on the platform such as post, reply, like and bookmark.
Musk appeared to confirm the speculation in his reply to the tweet claiming that the small fee is “the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots” on the platform.
Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2024
Current AI (and troll farms) can pass “are you a bot” with ease.
In another reply, Musk also revealed that new users on X will only be allowed to post, reply, like and bookmark for free for up to three months after they have created an account.
That is way harder than paying a tiny fee.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2024
This is only for new users. They will be able to do write actions for free after 3 months.
The timeline for when the change will take place hasn’t been revealed yet, but in another tweet reply, Musk claimed that fake accounts on the platform result in many good usernames becoming unavailable for users to use, and that in the next coming weeks, X will free up “tens of millions” of namespaces.
It is also unclear on what that “tiny fee” will be for new users, but when X began piloting the change in the Philippines and in New Zealand last year in October, new users were being charged $1 a year to “post and interact with other posts” on the platform. The company claimed in a tweet that the goal of the change is to “reduce spam” and “manipulation” on the platform as well as “bot activity.”
It appears that many X users are divided on the upcoming change as some claim that it will cause more issues, and others believe that the change will make the platform a better experience.
Good 😊 It will create a better experience for real people.
— Joy Hattula (@HattulaJoy) April 15, 2024
Gotta be another way. This will stop so many new people from joining out of aggravation they have to pay.
— whatsupfranks (@WhatsupFranks) April 15, 2024
It might actually create more scams as it’s not exactly like spam and having to pay to send an email to curtail that. The scams are big money and scammers will pay fees now which just makes scamming easier and more lucrative as delivery rates and visibility increase dramatically.
— Beanie (@beaniemaxi) April 15, 2024
The move from X comes after it tweaked its blue checkmark system last week. The platform revoked users’ ability to hide their blue checkmarks, which users can pay for through a Premium subscription to show that they are verified on the platform. Some users opted to hide their blue checkmarks in order to avoid scrutiny from other users who would tease them for paying for one. The change broke the company’s initial promise to “evolve” the “hide your checkmark” feature for users in the future.
X also recently began granting blue checkmarks to popular accounts for free.
Going forward, all 𝕏 accounts with over 2500 verified subscriber followers will get Premium features for free and accounts with over 5000 will get Premium+ for free
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 28, 2024
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