Twitter (Sadly Now Called "X") Initiates its "Not a Bot" Feature to Help Combat Spammers

TechnophilePH

Nov 15

At a price. At a subscription. Misinformation is free but combatting it isn't. How delightful.

What's Twitter/X current shenanigans now? Why asking new users to pay a PHP 42.51 yearly fee to create an account of course, because that's apparently a great way to fight bot or fake accounts. It's not like it will push users away or anything. Nothing can go wrong with this.

The test initiated back on October 17, 2023, so it's been nearly a month since and there has been no changes. If you don't subscribe as a new user, you can only read tweets, watch videos, follow accounts. Existing users are not affected by this experiment.

"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," the platform said.

To recall, Twitter also announced a PHP 600 monthly fee to add a blue checkmark next to your username which defeats the purpose of having one. So the platform launched a gold version of the tick to identify true and verified accounts versus paid ones. If you don't know where to waste your money then this is the way to go.

If the experiment goes well, then Musk said it might introduce this feature for all users. Musk made several and notable changes to the platform, right through its controversial renaming to "X". Twitter still appears as the website link however. Alongside the changes were firing several employees including those in the board of directors and reinstated previously banned accounts like former US president Donald J. Trump.

Ex-founder Jack Dorsey, alongside Jay Graber and Jeremie Miller, creator of XMPP, have since launched a startup called BlueSky which looks and performs very similar to Twitter. It's a microblogging social media platform like Twitter that is currently in beta wherein only users with an invite code can register. Unlike Twitter, Bluesky aims to be decentralized, with all members within it benefitting for the common good. It is listed as a "public benefit corporation" in the United States.