Elon Musk, the prominent entrepreneur, has announced intentions to address the proliferation of bots on the social media platform X by implementing a small fee for new users. Musk emphasized the necessity of this fee to combat the increasing presence of bots that easily surpass conventional verification measures like CAPTCHA.
He stated that current AI capabilities and troll farms can easily navigate verification tests designed to identify bots, making a nominal fee the most effective solution to this persistent issue. Musk clarified that this fee requirement would only apply to new accounts for the initial three months, after which new users would gain posting privileges without payment.
While specific details regarding the implementation date and fee structure remain undisclosed, X had previously introduced a similar approach in October. New unverified users from New Zealand and the Philippines were required to pay $1 per year for access to posting and interactive features. Speculation suggests that Musk might adopt a similar fee structure for other regions.
X had recently initiated a campaign to eradicate spam accounts, notifying users of potential impacts on their follower count. However, the introduction of fees for new users indicates the platform’s further commitment to combatting the bot problem.
Musk’s concerns about AI bots align with X’s updated policy, allowing public posts to be utilized for training machine learning algorithms and AI models. His AI company, xAI, had previously expressed intentions to leverage public posts for training purposes.
Recently, xAI expanded access to its Grok chatbot, initially exclusive to Premium+ tier users, to premium users who pay a monthly subscription fee on X. Reports suggest that X aims to further broaden access to the Grok chatbot, enabling users to compose posts using this AI-powered tool.
