Elon Musk has launched his plan to charge users of X, formerly known as Twitter, for posting content on the social network.
As of October 17, 2023, X said in a post on his website that it has begun testing “Not A Bot,” a new subscription tier for new users in two countries: the Philippines and New Zealand.
The Not a Bot subscription costs $1 per year, according to X (although prices vary by country and currency). New users up
New X users who don’t pay the $1 per year fee can only perform “read-only” actions, according to X, such as:
On Tuesday, in one Post on X, Musk said the platform will be free to read in the future, “but $1 a year to write.” This is the only way to combat bots without blocking real users. This won’t stop bots completely, but it will make it 1000 times harder to manipulate the platform.”
Musk said last month that Musk said the monthly fee could be “a few dollars or so,” which he said would be enough to prevent 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,” X said in the post about the Not a Bot subscription plan. “This is evaluating a potentially impactful measure that can help us combat bots and spammers on X while balancing the platform’s accessibility with low fees. Existing users are not affected by this test.”
The price in New Zealand is 1.43 NZD per year and in the Philippines it is 42.51 PHP per year. New accounts created on X in these two countries must first verify their phone number.
In October 2022, after Musk reluctantly completed Twitter’s debt-laden $44 billion deal, he fired Twitter’s executives – and installed himself as CEO. Musk then led mass layoffs at Twitter, eliminating an estimated 80% of the company’s workforce. He announced he was renaming Twitter “X” in July.
News of X’s plans to charge new users a $1 annual fee was first reported by Fortune.