New users may need to pay to post on X, Elon Musk hints

Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) may soon start charging new users to post as a way to curb bots, its owner Elon Musk said. 

In a reply to an X account that posted about changes in X’s policy, Musk said, “Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots. Current AI (and troll farms) can pass “are you a bot” with ease.”

“The onslaught of fake accounts also uses up the available namespace, so many good handles are taken as a result,” Musk added. 

Musk was responding to X Daily News, which posted that “X might be expanding its policy to charge new users before they reply/like/bookmark a post.”

In a reply to another X user, Musk said that new accounts would be able to post after three months without a fee.

“That is way harder than paying a tiny fee. This is only for new users. They will be able to do write actions for free after 3 months,” Musk said. 

X already has such a policy in place in New Zealand and the Philippines, where new unverified users are required to pay $1 per year to be able to post. While they can read the posts upon joining, they have to pay a fee to post content, like, repost, reply, bookmark, and quote posts. 

The plan was announced in October last year in the two countries. 

Titled “Not A Bot”, the subscription plan was developed to “bolster our already significant efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity,” X had said at the time.  

“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,” it added. 

X now plans to expand the plan to other parts of the world, Musk hinted. 

Since taking over X, Musk has focused on rooting out bots to improve user experience on the platform. 

On 4 April, X Safety posted about a plan to eliminate accounts that violate our its rules against platform manipulation and spam.

“Today, we’re kicking off a significant, proactive initiative to eliminate accounts that violate our Rules against platform manipulation and spam. While we aim for accuracy in the accounts we remove, we’re casting a wide net to ensure X remains secure and free of bots. As a result, you may observe changes in follower counts,” X Safety said.