In a recent move by X, web users in New Zealand and the Philippines must now pay a yearly fee of $1 to access the platform and use any of its basic features, like posting, bookmarking, or even liking a post.
This subscription, part of the “Not A Bot” program, aims to reinforce efforts to combat spam, manipulation, and bot activity on the platform, as announced by X in a blog post.
According to the post, new users in these two countries joining via the web will also need to verify their accounts using a phone number. Fortune first hinted at Elon Musk’s intention to charge new users $1 annually shortly before X’s official announcement.
However, X’s post does not explain why the $1 subscription is exclusive to web users and not applicable to the mobile app.
Furthermore, it raises questions about why the “Not A Bot” program is only being introduced in these two countries. Speculation suggests that X may have observed a higher level of bot activity in these regions and that creating fake accounts via the website might be more prevalent.
“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,” said X in the blog post. “Within this test, existing users are not affected.”
Users who choose not to subscribe to the $1 fee will have limited functionality, restricted to “read-only” actions like viewing posts and watching videos.
It’s worth noting that while the “Not A Bot” terms and conditions indicate the option to subscribe from X’s iOS and Android apps, the primary post on X’s help center” focuses on web users.
This new program adds to X’s primary subscription offering, which costs $8 monthly.
Elon Musk, who has been vocal about charging for platform access to deter bot armies, acknowledges that only a minuscule percentage of users are currently paying. Despite these changes, he boasts about the increasing user engagement on Xread-only.
