X, formerly Twitter, to charge new users in 2 countries
New X users in two countries now will have to pay $1 a year in order to make or like posts, the platform announced Tuesday.
X, formerly known as Twitter, said the $1 annual fee would be required to post, repost, quote, reply, like or bookmark posts on the platform. The new policy applies to all new web accounts in New Zealand and the Philippines, but won’t affect existing users.
Those who don’t pay will be able to read posts, watch videos and follow accounts but won’t be able to create content of their own, according to X.
In a Tuesday post, X said that subscriptions “have proven to be the main solution that works at scale” to prevent spam and bot activity on the platform, and claimed the decision to start charging users was not motivated by profit. In July, X owner Elon Musk said the company’s advertising revenue was down about 50%.
Musk had floated the idea of a user fee in the past. In a September talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Musk said charging a small fee for all users was the “only way” he could think of to stop bots.
The platform already offers an $8 per month premium subscription that allows users to edit posts and share longer videos, among other features.
Bots — fake users programmed to behave like real ones — have been a problem since the platform was still named Twitter. The company had previously taken steps to try to reduce the number of bots on the platform, such as creating an automated process to detect suspicious log-ins.
When asked whether the annual fee might one day be expanded to all users, X replied with its standard auto-reply. The company laid off its communications team nearly a year ago.
Reactions to the announcement were overwhelmingly negative, with many users noting they would rather leave the platform than pay for basic functionality.
In response to the Tuesday announcement, BART encouraged its followers to download its app in order to maintain access to information about train arrival times and delays.