Elon Musk has already proven many times that he can surprise absolutely everyone. Although the idea of ending free access to social networking sites is not new, now we finally know the specifics. It looks like X (formerly Twitter) will be the first.
What is the biggest problem with free social media? First of all, accounts that are not run by people. There are entire bot farms in social media, used for various purposes. Most often, it aims to promote certain ideological issues among the target audience.
How important is this problem? Some studies say that up to several dozen percent of social media traffic is generated by bots. How to remedy this? This is what, among other things, Elon Musk talked about with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. During the conversation, a very important declaration was made that cannot go unnoticed.
Musk and Netanyahu on how to deal with pathology in social media
The conversation between the businessman and the politician concerned, among other things, the content published on social media. The Prime Minister of Israel was to signal how big a problem artificial intelligence has become. He also allegedly asked Elon Musk directly about how he intends to fight against anti-Semitic content that is still published by X.
Elon Musk’s answer may be surprising. He declared that X (formerly Twitter) would soon become a service that could only be accessed after paying a certain amount of money. Access to content that is currently available for free will be paid, but much cheaper than the X Premium subscription.
Is this the end of free social media?
If indeed platform X becomes paid, the steps of the competition seem obvious. There is no indication that the managers of Meta (Facebook, Instagram) would make a different decision. The argument of fighting bots, especially those spreading harmful texts, will certainly appeal to many users, which will make them decide to put a penny into the website’s treasury, bypassing advertisers.
What do you think about it? Will you pay for access to X if a small fee significantly increases the level of content published there?
Source: Dave Lee (Bloomberg)
