Elon Musk’s X gets a new feature; Users can block replies from unverified accounts

tech.hindustantimes.com:

X (formerly Twitter) has now added a new feature, which is being deemed controversial by a section of the users. The Elon Musk-owned social media platform now lets users restrict the replies to a post to only those who are verified by X, meaning they have the $7.99 monthly subscription. At the moment, X has not made it the default option, and ‘everyone can reply' is still set as default unless the user changes it. Some users are calling this feature a ‘paywall' to reply to posts, something which is considered a basic feature for social media platforms.

The feature was announced earlier today by the official account of X, and it posted, “you can now limit replies to verified users” along with an image that showed the option using which unverified accounts can be locked out. Some users have mentioned that this feature has been introduced only to strong-arm users into buying the premium subscription, which was introduced almost a year ago by Musk as a paid verification that comes with the blue checkmark.

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One user commented, “It's going to be very hard to be on this platform without a verified badge”.

There are some arguments that highlight the futility and potentially harmful consequences of this feature. One of the main reasons why this feature was added was to combat the ongoing bot issue on the platform, where many posts are infested with bot replies to either troll a post, spread misinformation, or just promote something.

However, as has been seen in recent times, bots are also getting verified by X Premium and have been seen flaunting the blue checkmark, which nullifies the objective of this feature. In addition, a large majority of the platform still continues to be unverified. By