Elon Musk to Charge X Users For Protection Against Bots

Elon Musk in his latest announcement said that he would charge users a small fee to use social media platform X as it is the only way to protect against bot accounts. Though the sum is not specified, it will be a monthly payment.

In a conversation with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu at Tesla offices in California, he questioned Musk about preventing the ‘armies of bots’ from spreading hate speech. To which Musk replied, “I’d say the single most important reason we’re moving towards having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is that it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.”

He had been speaking about dealing with bots a lot lately. And with the payment move, the problem might be solved for him. With the payment move, the bot creators will need to pay to add more bots.

Not long ago, civil rights groups criticized Musk for not doing enough to fight hate speech and anti-Semitic content on X. He even thought of suing the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish organization, for messing with X’s revenue. But as of now, no lawsuit has hit the ADL from Musk or X Corp.

Before his interview with Netanyahu, Musk accused George Soros, the well-known philanthropist, of wanting to harm Western civilization. Resulting in Soros becoming the target of all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories. Also, on his X handle, Elon has made some controversial comments about various groups and individuals.

The solution that Musk came up with is monetizing the entry into the platforms. The natural logic behind it being that a spammer won’t find any incentive in paying for bots. That can realistically stop bots, but is there any other way?

Bots are not just a problem for X. Instagram and Facebook have been facing this issue for a long time. Another common solution for this could be CAPTCHA verifications and blocking known hosting providers and proxy services. But, X has chosen the route that best benefits them.