Twitter (X) Is Now Charging Money for Sending Tweets

• X plans to introduce fees for new users, testing a subscription service called “Not a Bot.
• New users will be charged $1 annually to post on the platform.
• X aims to reduce bot activity while maintaining platform accessibility with this small fee.

X has formally declared its plan to introduce fees for newcomers using the platform previously known as Twitter. The company has introduced a new subscription service called “Not a Bot,” currently in the testing phase in New Zealand and the Philippines.

As initially reported by Fortune, this subscription model requires new users to pay an annual fee of $1 to have the ability to post on the platform. X has specified that beginning on October 17, 2023, the platform began testing ‘Not A Bot,’ a new subscription system for new users in two countries.

“This new test was developed to bolster our already significant efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform, and bot activity. This will evaluate a potentially powerful measure to help us combat bots and spammers on X while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount.”

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…

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— Support (@Support) October 17, 2023

In this program, new users are required to confirm their phone numbers and submit the $1 fee to gain access to key features such as posting tweets, retweets, saving bookmarks, and liking posts. Users who choose not to pay will experience restricted access, limited to a “read-only” mode.

The company has made it clear that, currently, these charges won’t apply to current users and has emphasized that the purpose of this move is not profit generation.

However, the initial trial is likely to raise speculation that X could potentially expand these fees to all users. Elon Musk had previously hinted at the idea of implementing mandatory payments as a way to combat bots and spam in a recent live-streamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Elon Musk‘s interest in gaining access to users’ credit card and billing information has been widely observed, in line with his broader objective to venture into the banking sector and provide a wider range of financial services through X.

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