Elon Musk Starts Charging New Users For Twitter: ‘It’s the Only Way’
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Elon Musk’s social network X — formerly known as Twitter — announced on Tuesday that new users would be charged $1 a year to make posts and use other key features on the platform.
“Starting today, we’re testing a new program (Not A Bot) in New Zealand and the Philippines,” announced X in a statement, which received mixed reactions. “New, unverified accounts will be required to sign up for a $1 annual subscription to be able to post & interact with other posts. Within this test, existing users are not affected.”
The company claimed, “This new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. It is not a profit driver. And so far, subscription options have proven to be the main solution that works at scale.”
X users in New Zealand and the Phillipines posted screenshots of the rollout, showing new users are now greeted with a pop-up inviting them to “unlock the ability to post and engage by paying a small fee.”
Musk defended the decision in his own post on Tuesday, writing, “It’s the only way.”
Critics, however, pointed out that many bots and scammers were already verified on the platform, a process which costs $8 per month, proving spammers were more than happy to pay at least eight times the amount of X’s new fee to utilize the social network for nefarious purposes.
Since his acquisition of Twitter late last year, Musk has implemented a number of unpopular features — most recently, the removal of headlines from news articles, which made it difficult for users to distinguish between photos and links, and resulted in a wave of disinformation.
