Just Joining Elon Musk's X? You Will Now Have To Shell Out $1 For Proper Access If You Live In These Two Countries

Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, has started charging a $1 annual subscription fee for new users in New Zealand and the Philippines as part of its “Not A Bot” program, with the primary goal of mitigating spam, manipulation, and bot activity on the platform.

What Happened: True to his words, Musk has begun testing a program that charges all users (new joiners for now in two countries) $1 if they want to have more than just “read-only” access on the platform. 

On Tuesday, the company announced, “As of October 17th, 2023 we’ve started testing ‘Not A Bot’, a new subscription method for new users in two countries.”

See Also: Apparently, This ‘Major Issue’ On Elon Musk’s X Can Destroy Your Reach On The Platform

Starting today, we're testing a new program (Not A Bot) in New Zealand and the Philippines. New, unverified accounts will be required to sign up for a $1 annual subscription to be able to post & interact with other posts. Within this test, existing users are not affected.

This…

— Support (@Support) October 17, 2023

New users will have to complete these two steps under the “Not A Bot” program: 

Step One: Verify Your Phone

If you’re making a new account on X in New Zealand or the Philippines, you’ll need to verify your phone number first.

Step Two: Choose Your Plan

For $1 a year (the price may change based on your location and currency), new users on the web version of X can do a bunch of things, like posting content, liking posts, replying, reposting, quoting other people’s posts, and bookmarking posts.

An important aspect of this subscription model is that it doesn’t affect existing users or those joining via the mobile app on iOS or Android. 

According to Musk, while the program won’t stop bots completely, “it will be 1000X harder to manipulate the platform.”

Correct, read for free, but $1/year to write. It's the only way to fight bots without blocking real users.

This won't stop bots completely, but it will be 1000X harder to manipulate the platform.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2023

Why It’s Important: The “Not A Bot” program comes in addition to X’s primary $8 monthly subscription. 

Musk has previously stated that charging a fee can help slow down the problem of bots on the microblogging site. 

However, it was previously reported that only a very small percentage of users currently pay for these subscriptions.

Twitter X Image By Yalcin Sonat Via Shutterstock

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