On Monday, Elon Musk, CEO of social media platform X, proposed implementing a small fee for new users to post, reply, or like posts.
In a recent post, Musk expressed his belief that implementing such a measure would be necessary to address the issue of an overwhelming number of bots on the website.
Elon Musk Confirms Imposing 'Small Fee' for New X Users
Elon Musk has officially confirmed a plan that had previously made waves online. Musk took to social media to respond to a user's post and provide the confirmation.
A recent update on the platform mentioned that users would be required to pay a small annual fee to access features such as posting, liking, saving, and replying to posts.
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.
Per 9to5Mac, he further contended that AI tools can effortlessly pass tests designed to identify them as robots. Musk announced that users who opt out of paying will still be able to follow other accounts and access posts without any charge.
Individuals who choose not to pay for the unlocking of the posting feature will receive it at no charge after three months. The exact date of the implementation and the price of the fee remain undisclosed. There have been reports suggesting that X may be considering implementing a nominal fee for non-verified users.
Last Year's Fee for Unverified X Users
In October 2023, the platform implemented a fee of $1 per year for new unverified users in New Zealand and the Philippines.
Users from these countries were only able to read the posts, but they were unable to interact with them. In order to write a post, repost, or reply to a post, new users were required to make a payment. Musk is considering implementing a fee that is comparable to fees in other areas, according to Live MINT.
Musk has previously discussed his interest in addressing AI bots. Last year, X implemented a new policy that introduced a clause allowing the utilization of public posts for the purpose of training machine learning algorithms.
xAI, the AI company led by Musk, introduced its latest creation, the "Grok" chatbot, exclusively available to Premium X users for a monthly fee of $8. According to a recent report by Fortune, it seems that X has plans to make Grok accessible to all users for composing posts.
Recent data from Sensor Tower reveals that a significant number of the top 100 US advertisers on X have ceased allocating their ad budget on the platform.
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