X Daily News, previously known as Twitter, now requires new users signing up to the platform to pay an introducing fee for basic actions such as liking, posting, or bookmarking, as announced by X CEO Elon Musk.

According to the X Daily News, an account that regularly provides updates on X-related developments, it observed that the platform's website had been updated to indicate a yearly fee being charged to new users to access it. The policy has already been implemented in New Zealand and the Philippines, for a trial phase to combat spam, and bot activity and enhance user experience.

The industrious robot responsible for automatically tracking code changes on X's websites and applications has found this pricing policy. The finding stoked conjecture, which resulted in the tweet from X Daily News, to which Musk replied. Musk explained the paid access involved a small fee to mitigate the issues of AI technology and troll farms, which were easily bypassing traditional bot detection measures.

"Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots. Current AI (and troll farms) can pass "are you a bot" with ease," Musk tweets.

The term "relentless onslaught of bots" refers to the increasing challenges that internet platforms are facing in controlling and regulating the automated behavior of these bots. The anticipated cost for accessing X would be approximately $1, as reflected in the $1.75 charge in New Zealand.

These bots may be used to flood the platform with messages, control conversations, and artificially increase the number of messages that receive views. This can set off trends, change people's perceptions, and impact important political issues.

However, because bots can now quickly circumvent classic protections like CAPTCHA thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), they are no longer applicable. The goal of charging a charge is to create a financial barrier that will discourage bot operators from signing up for the platform in large quantities.

Moreover, the problem of fake accounts consuming available usernames, which limited the availability of desirable handles for genuine users was also highlighted but did not disclose details on how the platform plans to implement the new policy to solve the issue. Even the provision of a paid policy poses the concern of spammers exploiting by paying the fee itself or creating multiple accounts, irrespectively. This also raises the broader concern of user integrity metrics on social media platforms at large.

Musk blasted Twitter for its advertising-driven economic model, claiming that it encourages the spread of phony accounts to artificially increase the number of users. Musk thinks that exaggerated user numbers might deceive investors and advertisers, jeopardizing the platform's legitimacy and dependability.

What could this mean for the future of X Users?

These days, it has been demonstrated that AI technology can get around established security protocols like CAPTCHA. Because of this, automated activities on platforms have increased, which has resulted in spamming and conversation manipulation. Is a financial barrier thus a more effective deterrent?

X Daily News
Image: Variety

The move to charge new users deviates significantly from X's prior business strategy as a social networking platform that was free to use. Although the change intends to enhance user experience and address the ongoing problem of spam, it also raises concerns over user acceptance and accessibility.

The implementation of a user charge may have extensive repercussions. On the one side, it may discourage platform abusers who use bots. That may, however, turn off new users who are unwilling to pay to use the platform. It's yet unclear how this action will affect things.

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