The social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has begun charging a US$1 annual fee for new users in the Philippines and New Zealand, in a test designed to cut down on spam accounts on the site.
The annual subscription has been dubbed the “Not a Bot” program. The fee won’t apply to existing users, only new sign-ups.
New users who forgo paying the US$1 a year fee won’t be able to use most of X’s features, including posting content and liking, replying, reposting, quoting and bookmarking other accounts’ posts. They will instead have “read only” accounts, and will only have the options to read posts, watch videos and follow accounts.
The test of the new “Not a Bot” subscription started as of Tuesday, when the announcement was first made.
“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,” the X support account tweeted. “It is not a profit driver.”
It’s not clear why the test was chosen to roll out first in New Zealand and the Philippines. Since the fee is US$1, that price translates to approximately NZ$1.43 and 42.51 Philippine pesos.
In a post on X, Elon Musk said this new subscription tier “won’t stop bots completely, but it will be 1000X harder to manipulate the platform.”
“It’s the only way to fight bots without blocking real users,” he said.
Musk previously talked about the potential to charge all users a small fee to use X in a discussion on AI that included Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said the monthly fee might be “a few dollars or something.”
Creating bots to post on X only costs a “fraction of a penny,” he said, so raising the cost of creating an account could discourage organizations from creating large amounts of bots.
“Plus, every time a bot creator wanted to make another bot, they would need another new payment method,” he said.
Not everyone online is convinced, however. One X user believes that operators of bot accounts have ample money and resources to pay the US$1 fee.
“One dollar will be nothing to them,” they wrote.
Others have expressed that they would rather keep the $1 than spend it on access to X.
Another user pointed out that other social media platforms have been able to deal with bots and spam without introducing paywalls.
Since Musk bought X a year ago, he has introduced a slew of changes such as renaming the platform and gutting its workforce — including its content moderation team.
Outside watchdog groups say the changes have allowed misinformation to thrive on the platform, a problem that exploded after the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted.
Musk previously turned to premium subscriptions as a tactic to boost the financially struggling platform’s revenue.
One of his first product moves was to shake up the site’s blue check verification system by launching a service granting checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month. A flood of imposter accounts forced the service’s temporary suspension days after launch.
— With files from The Associated Press
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