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X to Test Charging Users $1 a Year to Reduce Spam, Bot Accounts
The new Twitter X logo at the company's headquarters in San Francisco, California, US, on Saturday, July 29, 2023. Elon Musk has changed Twitter Inc.'s logo, replacing its signature blue bird with a stylized X as part of the billionaire's vision of transforming the 17-year-old service into an everything app. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, began testing a $1-per-year subscription fee for new accounts on the web that want to post or interact with other users, saying the measure has the potential to reduce spam, automated bot accounts and manipulation of its service.
The test, called “Not a Bot,” started Tuesday in New Zealand and the Philippines, X said in a blog post. New users who don’t pay the fee won’t be able to take certain actions on the site, including writing posts, liking, replying or bookmarking.
“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,” according to the San Francisco-based company’s blog post. “Within this test, existing users are not affected.”
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That should bring a lot of users in. NOT.
$1 is a very small price to pay to eliminate BOTs.