Elon Musk’s X may charge users in these two countries $1 a year to post on platform

Elon Musk’s X is planning to charge users in New Zealand and the Philippines joining via the platform’s web application $1 per year as part of its programme to reduce bot activity.

The subscription is part of X’s “Not A Bot” programme, which attempts to “bolster our already significant efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity”, the company noted in a help centre post on its website on Tuesday.

As part of the pilot programme, new users signing up via the website in the two countries will also be required to verify their account with a phone number, the unsigned post said.

It remained unclear why the subscription programme is being rolled out only in these two countries, and exclusively for new users joining via the X website, and not the mobile app.

However, Not a Bot’s terms and conditions suggested that people may also subscribe to the programme from X’s iOS and Android apps, while the main help centre post only specified web.

“As of October 17th, 2023 we’ve started testing “Not A Bot”, a new subscription method for new users in two countries,” the company posted.

“This will evaluate a potentially powerful measure to help us combat bots and spammers on X, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. Within this test, existing users are not affected,” it said.