Elon Musk has begun his plan to charge users of X, formerly known as Twitter, to participate and publish content on the social network.
On October 17, 2023, X said in a post on its website that it began testing “Not A Bot,” a new subscription tier for users in the Philippines and New Zealand. The “Not a Bot” subscription plan will cost $1 annually on X, adding that prices vary by country and currency. With the subscription, users on plan
On Tuesday, in a post on X, Musk said the platform going forward will be free to read, “but $1/year to write. It’s the only way to combat bots without blocking real users. This won’t completely stop bots, but it will be 1000 times harder to manipulate the platform.”
Musk said last month that X/Twitter is “moving to a small monthly payment for using System X” — a step that is necessary, he said, to stop the plague of bots flooding the platform. His comments about charging X users came during a discussion on AI that included Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Musk said the monthly fee could be “a few dollars or so,” which he said would be enough to stop bot accounts from being created.
“This new test is designed to reinforce our already significant efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform, and bot activity,” said X in the post about the Not a Bot subscription plan. “This will evaluate a potentially powerful measure to help us combat bots and spammers on X, while balancing the accessibility of the platform with the small fee amount. In this test, existing users are not affected.”
For now the price in New Zealand will be $1.43 NZD per year, and in the Philippines it will be ₱42.51 PHP per year. New accounts created on X in these two countries will first be required to verify their phone number.
In October 2022, after Musk reluctantly closed the acquisition of Twitter for 44 billion dollars, the platform began to undergo rapid changes – cutting around 80% of the company’s workforce, until the announcement of renaming Twitter to “X” in July this year.
