Elon Musk says charging new X (Twitter) users to post is the “only way” to crack down on bots

Elon Musk promised defeat the bots if he managed to buy Twitter (now X). The billionaire finally took over the microblogging social network, but the problem with these automated accounts spam generators still existing. Now, a year and a half after acquiring the platform, Musk has put on the table a peculiar idea to face the situation: make more users pay.

So far, the only ones who pay to use X are those who subscribe to some of their Premium plans. These are proposals that, in all cases, offer advantages such as editing messages and making longer posts. The next step for the social network would be to charge new members who wish to post, limiting what can be done without going through the checkout.

Charge users to combat bots

The news has come to light through this message published this afternoon by Musk himself: “Unfortunately, the only way to stop the relentless attack of bots is with a small fee per publication for new users.” The businessman was responding to another message that referenced changes to the terms of service that opened the door to charging users to help reduce spam.

Musk also pointed out that current bots powered by artificial intelligence can easily pass the “are you a robot?” test, referring to the CAPTCHA method that aims to prevent the use of online platforms such as social networks by automated systems. And, although CAPTCHA has evolved by generating puzzles with AI, it is not as effective as expected.

It should be noted that Musk has not provided details about when this new mechanic would be applied or what fees users would have to pay. However, X this idea to combat bots It has been running as a pilot test since October last year in New Zealand and the Philippines. In both countries, new users must pay $1 a year to post, like, reply to, and quote posts. Existing users, for their part, can continue using the social network as before without paying.

This is not the first time that the Tesla CEO also talks about this idea. According to a conversation about artificial intelligence held last year with the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, “a bot costs a fraction of a cent, but, although [quien crea el bot] have to pay… a few dollars or something like that, the effective cost of bots is very high.” The idea would be to make the use of spam bots economically unfeasible.

Images | Daniel Oberhaus (2018) | x

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