After weeks of speculation, X has confirmed its plans to charge new users for the service previously known as Twitter. The company shared details about a new subscription called “Not a Bot,” that it’s currently testing in New Zealand and the Philippines.
The subscription, which was first reported by Fortune, requires new users to pay the equivalent of $1 USD per year in order to be able to post. “As of October 17th, 2023 we’ve started testing ‘Not A Bot,’ a new subscription method for new users in two countries,” X explains. “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.”
Under the scheme, new users will be required to verify their phone numbers and pay the $1 fee if they want to use core features like tweets, retweets, bookmarks and likes. Those who who don’t pay will only be able to use X in a “read only” mode.
The company said that for now the fees will not apply to existing users. “It is not a profit driver,” X said.
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.
— Support (@Support) October 17, 2023
This…
However, the initial test will likely fuel speculation that X does plan to one day charge all users. During a livestreamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, Elon Musk suggested he was considering some kind of mandatory payment as part of an effort to combat bots and spam.
“Subscription options have proven to be the main solution that works at scale,” X said in a post from its support account. Musk’s earlier comments proved unpopular and on X rival Bluesky saw a surge in activity following the remarks.
Others have also reported that Musk has long had ambitions to gain access to users’ credit card and billing information, which would further his plan to bring banking and other financial services to X. According to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Musk’s push to sign-up subscribers was very much intertwined with his quest to build an “everything app,” and Musk grew angry when he learned Apple doesn’t share credit card details of those who sign up with their iPhones.
X didn’t respond to a request for comment.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-is-starting-to-charge-new-users-1-per-year-to-send-tweets-000925191.html?src=rss X is making a significant change to its crowd-sourced fact checking tool in an attempt to stem the flow of misinformation on its platform. The new rule is one that will be familiar to professional fact checkers, academics and Wikipedia editors, but is nonetheless new to X’s approach to fact-checking: the company will now require its volunteer contributors to include sources on every community note they write.
The company announced the change in a post on X, shortly after Wired reported that some community notes contributors are worried the tool is being manipulated by bad actors and worsening X’s misinformation problems amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. “Starting today, sources are now required for proposed notes,” the company wrote. “We haven’t previously required this, as some helpful notes inherently do not need sources – for example, they refer to details of the post or media it contains. But those instances are less common, and we believe the overall impact of this change will be positive.”
The change comes amid mounting scrutiny of the amount of misinformation and other falsehoods spreading on X in recent days. Longtime researchers have said that misinformation has reached new heights following Hamas’ attacks in Israel and the ensuing war. The advent of paid verification, and algorithm changes that boost paying subscribers, have allowed misinformation to spread relatively unchecked, researchers have said.
Notes that cite sources have a much higher likelihood of earning a 'Helpful' status. This is not surprising, as sources make notes more easily verifiable by viewers and raters. Starting today, sources are now required for proposed notes.
— Community Notes (@CommunityNotes) October 17, 2023
We haven’t previously required this, as… pic.twitter.com/6CWGkvtLPJ
European Union officials have also raised concerns, pointing to the viral spread of video game footage and other unrelated content falsely claiming to depict scenes from the ongoing conflict. EU officials opened an investigation into X over its handling of misinformation last week.
Under Elon Musk’s leadership, X cut the teams responsible for curating reputable information about breaking news events, removed misinformation-reporting tools, slashed safety teams that patrolled for disinformation, and stopped labeling state-affiliated media accounts. Instead, the company has relied almost entirely on Community Notes, which allows volunteer contributors to append fact-checks to individual tweets.
Contributors are not vetted before joining the program, though notes have to reach a certain threshold of “helpful” ratings from other contributors before they’ll be visible. X CEO Linda Yaccarino told EU officials last week that the company had “recently launched a major acceleration in the speed at which notes appear.”
According to Wired, the system is easily manipulated as groups of contributors can rate each other’s notes, or selectively rate contributions that align with their opinions. The report also says that community notes related to the Israel-Hamas war have been filled with conspiracy theories and infighting between contributors.
The change to require a linked source may be X’s attempt to increase the quality of its notes, though it doesn’t seem to have any guidelines about the types of sources that can be cited. The company says “thousands” of new contributors have joined the program in recent days, and that notes have been viewed “millions” of times.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-now-requires-community-fact-checks-to-include-sources-235125787.html?src=rss