Elon Musk is considering implementing a nominal fee for new X users to enable posting on the microblogging site, with the aim of addressing the issue of bot proliferation. Musk emphasized that charging a small fee to new accounts may be the “only way” to combat the “onslaught of bots” that often plague social media platforms.
Responding to a recent post about the website’s changes, Musk highlighted the necessity of implementing a fee for new accounts to deter bots. He mentioned that the current AI, including troll farms, can easily bypass traditional bot detection measures like CAPTCHA.
However, Musk clarified that new users would still have the ability to post for free after three months from the creation of their accounts. The specifics of the fee structure for new users have not been disclosed yet. In the past, the platform charged $1 per year from new unverified users in certain regions, such as New Zealand and the Philippines, to interact with posts.
Musk has previously expressed concerns about AI bots and their impact on social media platforms. X updated its policy to allow public posts for training machine learning algorithms, indicating a proactive approach to addressing this issue.
In addition, Musk’s AI company xAI introduced its “Grok” chatbot to Premium X users earlier this month, with plans to make it available to all users for composing posts. Despite Musk’s efforts, X has faced challenges, including a decline in revenue due to its war on advertisers, according to recent data.
