Elon Musk, the serial entrepreneur and CEO of multiple companies, including SpaceX and Tesla, is making waves in the social media world once again. This time, it’s with his plans to charge new users on his social network, known as X, a small fee to enable posting. The goal? To curb the bot problem that has plagued many online platforms.
In a recent tweet, Musk responded to an X account’s post about changes on the website, stating that charging a small fee to new accounts was the “only way” to stop the “onslaught of bots.” He pointed out that current AI and troll farms can easily pass “are you a bot” checks, such as CAPTCHA. As a result, Musk believes that implementing a small fee for new user write access is necessary to combat this issue.
However, Musk later clarified in another tweet that new accounts would be able to post for free after three months of creation. This move indicates that Musk is focused on targeting new users to prevent bots from infiltrating the platform.
This isn’t the first time X has implemented fees for its users. Last October, the platform started charging new unverified users in New Zealand and the Philippines $1 per year. These users could read posts but couldn’t interact with them without paying a fee. Musk may apply a similar fee structure to new users in other regions.
Additionally, X recently announced a major purge of spam accounts, warning users that their follower count might be affected. This, combined with the plan to charge new users, suggests that the social media company is taking steps to ensure the platform remains secure and free of bots.
While Musk has been vocal about battling AI bots, X updated its policy last year to include a clause that public posts could be used to train machine learning algorithms or artificial intelligence models. Musk’s AI company, xAI, also announced plans to use public posts to train models.
Overall, Musk’s plan to charge new users on X is a bold move aimed at tackling the bot problem that has plagued social media platforms. It remains to be seen how users will respond to this change and whether it will be effective in curbing the spread of bots on the platform.
