X Tests 'Not A Bot' Program That Charges New Users $1/Year to Post

[spinedoc77]

What's the big deal? If people think it's worth it they will pay, simple. Everyone cried about Netflix, but sure enough their sales are going up. Personally X has always been a complete dumpster fire and I only occasionally glanced at it, almost always only because the article I was reading referenced a X post. I will not miss Twitter/X for a single second and won't even give them $1 of my money to continue.

 

[sack_peak]

What's the big deal? If people think it's worth it they will pay, simple. Everyone cried about Netflix, but sure enough their sales are going up. Personally X has always been a complete dumpster fire and I only occasionally glanced at it, almost always only because the article I was reading referenced a X post. I will not miss Twitter/X for a single second and won't even give them $1 of my money to continue.

With Netflix they had a drop of subs from vocal minority but their revenues improved.

Elon has a track record of making almost all his companies become worth billions.

Why else is he worth over quarter trillion while almost all his nay sayers struggle to breach quarter million annual income?

His opinions when it comes to future tech, business, finance and anything temporal in this plane of existence matter.

 

[carlsson]

It's so little money for trolls and spammers, too.

Troll factories and spammers making any kind of money can easily afford $1 a year.

So I don't see how this fixes the bot problem.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What I mean is:
If you are a troll factory you need to have tens of thousands of accounts. Paying $1 per each of them is quite much. Or isn’t it? 🤔

 

[drumcat]

Most of New Zealand have moved to BlueSky. Been handing out codes like crazy.

 

[cocoua]

What I mean is:
If you are a troll factory you need to have tens of thousands of accounts. Paying $1 per each of them is quite much. Or isn’t it? 🤔

the odd thing is it isn't. When you have that kind of infrastructure, 100K, 500K is nothing. Politicians and supporters would pay that amount for fake news and win elections as is peanuts.
100K is 1-2 developer's year salary.
having tens of thousands of bots implies some real people working on it.

I say odd,because Musk must know very well what is he doing, so maybe smaller troll factories would be affected, and maybe, the small ones represents a big chunk of the bots portion in X, enough to affect and make some real change

He bought X.com back in 2017 I dont know if with SpaceX in mind or if he was already interested in Twitter, as I guess it was. So he would have many plans in his head, ahead the purchase.

 

[Premium1]

Interesting move. It's 100% not about removing bots but will be interesting to see how this is reacted to by the general users. I would doubt most will pay this. Maybe it's his plan after all to drive the price of X down and then buy the debt back from the back for cheaper than what he owes.

 

[ChrisA]

The real thing here is that he has tied each new user to a telephone number that is verified by sending a text message to it and getting a reply from the same number. This forces the guys running bots to have a telephone number for each bot. The $1 simply pays for this phone verification system

Where X makes money is with advertisers. They will know now that the users are real people.

As for users with free accounts dropping X. I doubt he cares much about people who don't pay anything refusing to continue to pay him nothing. He has little use for free and un-verified users. I think advertizers feel the same way.

 

[ChrisA]

the odd thing is it isn't. When you have that kind of infrastructure, 100K, 500K is nothing.

You are right. $100K is "nothing". But the troll farm will need not only many dolors but also many unique phone numbers. Where will they find 100,000 or 500,000 unique phone numbers? I am 100% certain that the text message verification checks if the number is unique.

I think there are bogus phone companies offering numbers but these companies get blacklisted when discovered.

 

[Michael Scrip]

What I mean is: If you are a troll factory you need to have tens of thousands of accounts. Paying $1 per each of them is quite much. Or isn’t it? 🤔

It depends...

Does the troll factory make money?

And if not... then why are they doing it?

I doubt the troll factories are doing it for the lulz

🤣

 

[ChrisA]

It depends...

Does the troll factory make money?

The trolls many times will have external funding from either a government or a political party. It would be easy for a party or government to come up to $100K. But as I said, it is not so easy to recieve and reply to 100,000 different text messages all sent to different phones.

Actually spending that $100K would not be easy as the troll would have to make it look like there were 100,000 unique PayPall or credit card accounts. And all te 100,000 transactions would have to actualy clear so they could not be fake accounts. They would need 100,000 real accounts.

 

[Michael Scrip]

The trolls many times will have external funding from either a government or a political party. It would be easy for a party or government to come up to $100K. But as I said, it is not so easy to receive and reply to 100,000 different text messages all sent to different phones.

Actually spending that $100K would not be easy as the troll would have to make it look like there were 100,000 unique PayPal or credit card accounts. And all the 100,000 transactions would have to actually clear so they could not be fake accounts. They would need 100,000 real accounts.

Awesome... so it sounds like Elon will finally fix the bot problem. Hooray!

Now what will he do about the troll humans? Does anyone still think bots are the biggest problem with X?

🤣

 

[definitive]

Didn't many people say X would be dead by now? Maybe perhaps, Elon knows what he's doing.

Can't wait for the "surely they're going to die from this new thing" comments. One more year should do it! 😂

At this rate we're more likely to see Threads (which is not doing so well) croak way before X does.

I think it's a good idea for social media companies who want to show that they're legitimate about combating bots to require credit cards for signups. Limit one card to 1-5 accounts maximum, and tie them to names or addresses. If someone starts a bot farm, boot them off the platform.

Stuff like this is done on PayPal and EBay to decrease the amount of bad actors. Don't see why it wouldn't help in the case of social media sites.

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

No, because the average person will much sooner migrate to any one of the freemium platforms than start paying to post on the one that's asking them to pay out of pocket.

Also, what business/media producer or content creator would pay to only reach the very specific and limited demographic of Twitter users who pay for Twitter when media and content creators can jump on any and all freemium platforms, like YouTube, Facebook, or TikTok, and reach every demographic without having to pay anything?

Access to posting on Twitter at $1/month is a pretty low value proposition. Unless you know with certainty that the "paying for Twitter" demographic is massive and next to none of them are using any of the freemium platforms, which is highly unlikely.

Social media runs on ads -Get advertisers or run the platform at a loss!

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

At this rate we're more likely to see Threads (which is not doing so well) croak way before X does.

I think it's a good idea for social media companies who want to show that they're legitimate about combating bots to require credit cards for signups. Limit one card to 1-5 accounts maximum, and tie them to names or addresses. If someone starts a bot farm, boot them off the platform.

Stuff like this is done on PayPal and EBay to decrease the amount of bad actors. Don't see why it wouldn't help in the case of social media sites.

No, because the average person will much sooner migrate to any one of the freemium platforms than start paying to post on the one that's asking them to pay out of pocket.

Also, what business/media producer or content creator would pay to only reach the very specific and limited demographic of Twitter users who pay for Twitter when media and content creators can jump on any and all freemium platforms, like YouTube, Facebook, or TikTok, and reach every demographic without having to pay anything?

Access to posting on Twitter at $1/month is a pretty low value proposition. Unless you know with certainty that the "paying for Twitter" demographic is massive and next to none of them are using any of the freemium platforms, which is highly unlikely.

Social media runs on ads -Get advertisers or run the platform at a loss!

 

[cocoua]

Interesting move. It's 100% not about removing bots but will be interesting to see how this is reacted to by the general users. I would doubt most will pay this. Maybe it's his plan after all to drive the price of X down and then buy the debt back from the back for cheaper than what he owes.

this sounds so Elon Musk

 

[spazzcat]

so one more year right

Maybe a few months maybe a few years, but don't change the fact it is a dying platform at this point.

 

[iPay]

Money is not so much the problem, but privacy. And if you can pay anonymously, a government could still create 100,000 bots for $100,000 per year.

Hate fuels twitter, not privacy. Sure as death and takses (avoiding Musk's fetish letter in case he patents it).

 

[iPay]

Nearly 8 billion people in the world each gave me one dollar. That's the dream I wish would come true.
Just kidding. ┑(￣Д ￣)┍

I need a dollar, a dollar is what I need...
From everyone.
Then perhaps another dollar.

 

[staypuftforums]

What I mean is:
If you are a troll factory you need to have tens of thousands of accounts. Paying $1 per each of them is quite much. Or isn’t it? 🤔

You’d presumably need tens of thousands of credit card numbers and phone numbers too.

 

[webkit]

That’s a very good question, but it depends on if we assume he’s legitimately trying and is simply incompetent, in which case he shouldn’t be in that position of power. Or if we assume he is doing it on purpose out of spite or malice, if not from just being an emotionally-unstable egomaniac who can’t control himself and makes terrible decisions on a whim. Or several of those factors, really.

While I think Musk throwing away Twitter brand equity so quickly was a big mistake, I see no reason why he would be deliberately trying to sabotage the company. Twitter had its problems before Musk and has its problems (I think even more) now. How long it will take to turn Twitter/X around, if it's even going to happen, remains to be seen. It sounds like Musk has much broader plans for the "X" app.

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

Our dude improved Twitter so much that he doesn't even need users in Europe anymore:

Musk may block X in Europe, to avoid having to fix disinformation

Elon Musk reportedly thinks it may be simpler to block X in Europe, rather than fix the massive problem with...

9to5mac.com

What are those Europeans on about now, "disinformation"?

Why can't they just stick to improving iPhone ports and leave the super genius be?! 😡

The $8/month X Premium subscription already fixed everything. Elon said so and so it is.

It's time to wake up and smell the 100% bot free coffee, EU Commission!

/s

👏😆

 

[mateytate]

I am admittedly a little surprised it's still online at all after they fired basically everyone.

I guess that just shows how bloated it was under previous management.

 

[marzbarz]

Maybe a few months maybe a few years, but don't change the fact it is a dying platform at this point.

lol any downward trend makes any company a dying company. by that logic, apple was a dying company back in late 2022.

completely pointless argument.

 

[CarAnalogy]

"Disinformation" is not for the platform to decide. You walk down the street and you can hear disinformation all the time. Disinformation is for you to decide.

Yes. Hard when every source of original information is biased. Ironically that's one thing Twitter was supposed to solve. Authentic sources of information from real people who are there. Twitter is kind of a microcosm of what society has become. Or was that a cause rather than an effect.

 

[AgentOSX]

Before his candidacy the PH drug problem was barely in the news.

After his filing then his doom and gloom on the drug war came about.

An estimated 7,742 civilians have been killed in "anti-drug operations" carried out by the government and its supporters between 2016 and 2021

China influenced the 2016 PH Presidential elections and got Duterte to back down the claims over the territorial waters of the West Philippine Sea. His predecessor won at UNCLOS.

I get you are running under the assumption of what sounds like democracy but Hitler was a populist too.

It was barely on the news becuase the fear of drug gangs was that thorough.
You didn’t make the point you thought you did.