SoatDev IT Consulting
SoatDev IT Consulting
  • About us
  • Expertise
  • Services
  • How it works
  • Contact Us
  • News
  • October 17, 2023
  • Rss Fetcher
An image of Elon Musk on a background with a repeating pattern of folded dollar bills
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

If you want to join X, the service formerly known as Twitter, via its website in New Zealand and the Philippines, be prepared to fork over $1 a year for the privilege.

The subscription, part of a so-called “Not A Bot” program, is beginning in those two countries and is designed to “bolster our already significant efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity,” X said Tuesday in an unsigned post on its help center. In addition, new web users in New Zealand and the Philippines will have to verify their account with a phone number, the post says. Fortune first reported that Musk was going to charge new users $1 a year shortly before X’s announcement went live.

X’s post doesn’t explain why the new $1 subscription is only for new users joining via the web and not the mobile app, or why Not a Bot is only being rolled out in two countries. A guess would be that X has seen more bot activity from these regions than others, and that it’s much easier to create a bunch of fake accounts via the website. “New users who opt out of subscribing will only be able to take ‘read only’ actions,” such as viewing posts and watching videos, according to the company.

(Confusingly, the “Not A Bot” terms and conditions indicate that people will be able to also subscribe from X’s iOS and Android apps, even though the main post on X’s help center only specifies web.)

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

This new program is in addition to X’s main subscription of $8 a month. Musk has been clear from the beginning of his Twitter takeover that he thinks charging will impede bot armies, though it’s estimated that a very, very small percentage of users are paying. Meanwhile, he has been bragging about how time spent on X has never been higher.

Update October 17th, 8:34PM ET: Added post from Elon Musk.




Sign up for Command Line, a paid weekly newsletter from Alex Heath about the tech industry’s inside conversation. Your first month is free!

Monthly

$7/month

A flexible plan you can cancel anytime.

Annual

$70/year

A discounted plan to keep you up to date all year.

Corporate

$60/person/year

Keep your team informed on the inside conversation.

We accept credit card, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Previous Post
Next Post

Recent Posts

  • Slate Auto drops ‘under $20,000’ pricing after Trump administration ends federal EV tax credit
  • Everyone in tech has an opinion about Soham Parekh
  • Cluely’s ARR doubled in a week to $7M, founder Roy Lee says. But rivals are coming.
  • Who is Soham Parekh, the serial moonlighter Silicon Valley startups can’t stop hiring?
  • TechCrunch All Stage brings back early launch prices for a limited time

Categories

  • Industry News
  • Programming
  • RSS Fetched Articles
  • Uncategorized

Archives

  • July 2025
  • June 2025
  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023

Tap into the power of Microservices, MVC Architecture, Cloud, Containers, UML, and Scrum methodologies to bolster your project planning, execution, and application development processes.

Solutions

  • IT Consultation
  • Agile Transformation
  • Software Development
  • DevOps & CI/CD

Regions Covered

  • Montreal
  • New York
  • Paris
  • Mauritius
  • Abidjan
  • Dakar

Subscribe to Newsletter

Join our monthly newsletter subscribers to get the latest news and insights.

© Copyright 2023. All Rights Reserved by Soatdev IT Consulting Inc.