Elon Musk’s Twitter / X Testing Charging New Accounts $1 Annual Fee to Combat Spammers and Bots

X, formerly known as Twitter, has launched a program in limited territories that charges $1 for new signups.

The Not A Bot program, first reported by Fortune, is live now in New Zealand and the Philippines and forces new, unverified accounts to sign up for a $1 annual subscription to be able to post and interact with other posts on the web version of X. Existing users are not affected, the Elon Musk-owned social media platform said.

X insisted this new program was designed to combat spam, bot activity, and “manipulation”, “while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount.” “It is not a profit driver,” X said. “And so far, subscription options have proven to be the main solution that works at scale.”

Here’s how it works, as outlined on X’s Help Centre:

Step One: Phone Verification

New accounts created on X, in these two countries, will first be required to verify their phone number.

Step Two: Select Your Subscription Plan

$1 USD Annual Fee (prices vary by country and currency). New users will be able to perform certain actions on the web version of the platform: post content, Like posts, Reply, Repost and Quote other accounts’ posts, Bookmark posts.X PremiumVerified Organizations

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.

X said it will share the results of this test soon, but there is already scepticism online about the program’s ability to stop bots on the platform, with many users bemoaning an apparent increase in spam in recent months. Musk had signalled his intention to charge all X users last month, but this current test is limited in scope for now. X’s premium blue tick, which costs $11 a month in the U.S. for iPhones, has seemingly done little to prevent scammers and bots targeting users.

Almost every bot that spams my replies is verified. How does this help me?

— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) October 18, 2023

“Our already successful efforts to reduce spam”

So why does every other post look like this now? pic.twitter.com/tPScjwvP0b

— Dan Whitehead (@DanWritehead) October 18, 2023

Remember when Elon was like “we’re gonna get rid of spam bots” lmao it’s a billion times worse than it ever was pre-elon

— Andy Cortez (didn’t pay) (@TheAndyCortez) October 18, 2023

Scammers realizing they’ll need to cough up a dollar to continue scamming: pic.twitter.com/tqcPqwKFCS

— CyberTribal 🎮📸 (@CyberTribal86) October 18, 2023

Most of the bot accounts nowadays already paid for a checkmark though. pic.twitter.com/ZnzNgz6dEa

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) October 18, 2023

Musk has made no secret of his desire to turn X into an “everything” app that includes payment services. Last month, Musk admitted an advertiser boycott since his takeover over concern about its management of inappropriate or hateful content has caused U.S. ad revenue to decline by 60%.

Musk bought Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion and has made a number of controversial decisions, including renaming it X, changing the verification system, and temporarily limiting the amount of tweets users can view in a day. Musk has also made sweeping layoffs, blaming them on ongoing revenue trouble. X faces lawsuits that allege the company is refusing to pay promised severance.

Image credit: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.