Elon Musk returns to his ultimate galaxy brain plan for Twitter: charging people to post
Billionaire and full-time troll Elon Musk has trailed his latest idea for X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and it's an absolute doozy. To briefly set the scene, Musk bought Twitter for roughly $44 billion in 2022, following a protracted saga that threatened to end up in court. Following the purchase Musk laid off a ton of staff, made verification a paid-for service, and has presided over a notable influx of bot activity (replies on the site are an utter mess).
The bots are really the most notable thing because, while Twitter's always had problems, the uptick in bot activity over the last couple of years has notably impacted the site's user experience. Ironically enough, one of Musk's big reasons for buying the platform was to annihilate the bots, but under his stewardship the problem's gotten significantly worse.
The solution? Musk has returned to an idea first mooted last year, and already trialled in two countries as the "not a bot" scheme: charging new users a nominal fee (the suggestion was $1 a year, or local equivalent) before they're allowed to post anything. Accounts will still be free to create, but can only read posts.
A news account that reports purely on X noted a recent change to the site's policies which suggested that this feature is going to be rolled-out more widely. No less than Musk himself shortly waded in to confirm that, yep, soon enough people will have to pay for the privilege of posting.
«Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots,» said Musk. «Current AI (and troll farms) can pass 'are you a bot' with ease.
»The onslaught of fake accounts also uses up the available namespace, so many good handles are taken as a result."
I feel a bit like I'm writing about Helldivers 2, but suffice to say the war against the Automatons looks to be entering a new stage. The idea itself is not completely wild and, if implemented correctly, would undoubtedly curtail some bot activity:
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