X’s new ‘Not-A-Bot’ feature threatens to make disinformation and bots more prevalent on the site, instead of removing them.
Recently, X, formerly known as Twitter, announced that it is testing a new subscription model which will charge new, unverified users $1 a year to access features such as posting and liking other posts. They have said that this feature is an attempt to tackle the issue of bots, hence the name for the system: ‘Not a Bot’. This feature is first rolling out in New Zealand and the Philippines.
Just one month ago, research published by QUT suggested that bots and disinformation on X were worse than ever before. We asked Timothy Graham, one of the authors of this report, what he thought of the new ‘Not a Bot’ feature. He said “This initiative – like the paid verification system – suffers from a fatal Muskian flaw: market interventions cannot solve mis- and disinformation.” He explained how the cost of $1 for an account that the platform will almost certainly think is human is “chump change for authoritarian states”, who can now verify millions of bot accounts with ease and use them to spread and encourage disinformation. “Basically, the rich can buy bots. Does that solve the problem? Probably not. Does it make it worse? Probably.”
To find about about other changes that have been made to Twitter, click here