Elon Musk's X is experimenting a yearly charge for unverified accounts

After Elon Musk intimated last month that X could charge all users, Twitter announced a test.

Tuesday's post by X revealed that it is piloting a new program called “Not a Bot” that will force new New Zealand and Philippines users to pay $1 annually to publish and engage with other postings.

The test is limited for new online accounts, and X's $3.99 per month premium subscription will waive the price. New testing region users who opt out of premium and the annual subscription can only read posts, watch videos, and follow accounts, not communicate. Current users will not be affected by the test.

The business stated in the statement that the program is aimed to “bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount,” not to generate profits.

Musk has pushed users to sign up for X Premium to reduce spam and fraud activity on the platform, arguing that credit card purchases validate a user's identity and make inauthentic accounts harder to access. Premium users get a blue checkmark, the platform's algorithm boosts their postings, and X's new ad revenue split scheme allows them to get paid.

Over the past week, X has been criticized for spreading inaccurate and misleading Israel-Hamas conflict allegations. After warning about conflict-related disinformation and unlawful content on its platform, the European Commission launched an investigation into X last week.