In response to the escalating bot problem plaguing the social platform X, Elon Musk has outlined a bold strategy: implementing a nominal fee for new users to activate posting privileges.
Musk’s proposal stems from a recognition of the pervasive issue of bots infiltrating X’s ecosystem. He argues that traditional bot detection methods like CAPTCHA are insufficient in thwarting the sophisticated AI technologies and troll farms currently circumventing them.
Navigating Policy and Platform Evolution
Expanding on his initial proposal, Musk clarified that new accounts would gain posting privileges after three months without the need for a fee. However, the specifics of this fee structure, including timing and magnitude, remain undisclosed.
This move echoes X’s previous introduction of a $1 annual fee for new unverified users in select regions, restricting them to passive engagement until payment. It’s plausible that Musk intends to extend this fee model to other regions as well.
In tandem with its anti-bot initiatives, X recently launched a crackdown on spam accounts, alerting users to potential fluctuations in their follower counts. The introduction of user fees signifies X’s commitment to curbing the bot epidemic and fostering a more authentic user experience.
Despite Musk’s vocal stance against AI bots, X’s policies have raised questions. The platform’s terms now permit the use of public posts for training machine learning algorithms—a practice also embraced by Musk’s AI venture, xAI, which announced plans to leverage public posts for model training.
In a recent development, xAI made its Grok chatbot available to Premium users of X, priced at $8 per month. Previously exclusive to Premium+ subscribers at $16 per month, Grok’s accessibility is poised for further expansion, with X reportedly considering its integration into post composition features.
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