According to a report by Cointelegraph, Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, is planning to charge new users of X for tweeting in an effort to combat the ongoing issue of spam accounts on the platform. However, not everyone believes that this approach will solve the problem.
An announcement made by an account called “X Daily News” on Tuesday, the 16th, stated that X may expand its policy to charge new users for basic functionalities such as posting, replying, liking, or bookmarking. Musk responded to the tweet, stating that since acquiring Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, he has been dealing with the issue of bots on the platform. He also mentioned that the impact of fake accounts “occupies available namespace, resulting in many good usernames being taken.”
Similar policies were tested in New Zealand and the Philippines in October of last year, where new users in these countries had to pay a $1 annual fee to join the “Not A Bot” subscription plan in order to access additional features. Musk stated at the time that this would not completely stop bots, but it would make it 1,000 times harder to manipulate the platform.
However, many people believe that this proposed fee structure may not deter the impact of bots. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT commented that there are hundreds of commercially verified scam accounts appearing every week, with scammers paying thousands of dollars for them. He shared a screenshot showing several fake Wormhole official accounts that had been verified and were posting false airdrop links.
ZachXBT added in his response that there is a complete black market behind these fake accounts, and the new policy would also hinder the growth of new users.
Roxo, a member of the Meta Mint team, responded to Musk’s tweet by stating that the problem is not related to the creation of new accounts but rather the inability of X employees to effectively terminate fake accounts. He also added that most bots and scam accounts were created several years ago.
