Elon Musk to Introduce Paid Posting for New X Users

Elon Musk Proposes Small Fee for New X Users to Combat Bot Problem

In an effort to tackle the relentless influx of bots on the social media platform X, Elon Musk has announced plans to introduce a nominal charge for new users who wish to post content. This move comes as a response to the growing concern over the ease with which AI and troll farms can bypass traditional bot detection methods like CAPTCHA.

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.

Musk clarified that this fee would only apply to new users, and they would be able to post freely after a three-month period following account creation.

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.

Implementation Details and Potential Fees

While the specifics of the policy, such as the implementation date and the exact fee amount, remain undisclosed, it is worth noting that X had previously experimented with a $1 per year charge for new unverified users in New Zealand and the Philippines. In these regions, new free users could read posts but were unable to interact with them without paying the fee.

Efforts to Combat Spam Accounts

Earlier this month, X announced a significant initiative to eliminate accounts that violate their rules against platform manipulation and spam. The company warned users that their follower count might be affected as a result of this purge.

X’s Stance on AI and Machine Learning

Despite Musk’s concerns about AI bots, X updated its privacy policy last year to include a clause stating that public posts could be used to train machine learning algorithms or artificial intelligence models. Additionally, Musk’s AI company, xAI, has expressed its intention to use public posts for training models.

Grok Chatbot Availability for Premium Users

In a related development, xAI’s Grok chatbot, which was previously available only to Premium+ users paying $16 per month, has now been made accessible to Premium users of X, who pay $8 per month. Reports suggest that X plans to make Grok available to users for composing posts in the near future.

As X continues to evolve under Musk’s leadership, it remains to be seen how these changes will impact the platform’s user experience and its ability to combat the persistent issue of bots and spam accounts.