Elon Musk, owner of Twitter ("X"), in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he plans to “combat vast armies of bots” by charging for use. .Musk and Netanyahu met for a livestreamed event Monday evening to discuss X, artificial intelligence and social issues. .Netanyahu asked Musk how he plans to deal with bot-driven hate speech on social media. .“This is actually a super tough problem,” Musk said. “And probably the single most important reason we’re moving to having a small monthly payment for the use of the X system is, it’s the only way I could think of to combat vast armies of bots.”.“And then so prioritizing posts that are written by basically X premium subscribers.”.“We’re wanting it to be just a small amount of money,” he said..Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, and appointed new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, in May 2023. He has said he envisions X to be an “everything app”, where users save their credit card and identity information to have access to greater convenience. .Now, Musk has furthered his plan for the everything app, by requiring users to pay for a monthly subscription with a credit card. .Musk reasons once users have to use a credit card, the bot problem will disappear — he says it will only be a small fee, as he plans to offer “lower-tier pricing.”.“And we’re actually going to come out with a lower tier pricing. We want it to be just a small amount of money. This is a longer discussion, but in my view, this is actually the only defence against armies of bots.”.“Because as AI gets very, very good, it’s actually able to pass these sort of CAPTCHA tests better than humans.”.When Musk took over Twitter, he told employees he envisions an “everything app” similar to WeChat by Tencent in China. .“There’s no WeChat equivalent out of China,” he said. “There’s a real opportunity to create that.”.“You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so usable and helpful to daily life, and I think if we can achieve that, or even get close to that at Twitter, it would be an immense success,” he continued. .When Yaccarino stepped into her CEO role, she echoed Musk’s plans. .“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity — centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services and opportunities,” Yaccarino said. .According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk “launched the original X.com in 1999 as a banking site after selling his first startup.”.“X.com, in his conception at that time, was going to be the one-stop shop for financial services,” WSJ said.
