To combat bots and spammers, Elon Musk's X to charge new users in two countries $1 in pilot

Microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter) will soon start charging an annual subscription of $1 for unverified accounts from users in New Zealand and the Philippines under its new programme — Not a Bot — the company said on Wednesday.

This will, however, not affect existing users. The company has termed this annual fee as a “test to bolster its efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity”.

“Starting today, we’re testing a new program (Not A Bot) in New Zealand and the Philippines. 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,” it posted on the platform.



Users in New Zealand will have to pay 1.43 New Zealand dollars a year and those in the Philippines will have to pay 42.51 pesos a year.

The Elon Musk-owned X wants to reduce the presence of millions of accounts run by bots, and considers subscription to be an effective model to counter it.

“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,” the company added.

Further, new users who opt out of subscribing will only be able to take “read only” actions, such as read posts, watch videos, and follow accounts.

Musk has already put a monthly price tag on the existing verified users Twitter Blue—on the platform.

How will users in the two countries go about this?

In the first step, new users in New Zealand and the Philippines will first have to verify their phone number when they sign up. Second, they will have to choose the subscription plan.

Here, they will have to pay an annual $1 fee (prices varying by country and currency) to perform certain actions on the web version, such as post content, like posts, reply, repost and quote other accounts’ posts, and bookmark posts.

Also read | ETtech Explainer: With X aiming to charge a fee from all users, are the days of free social media over?