Elon Musk has introduced yet another change that makes using X (formerly Twitter) for free more difficult.
Users now have the option to lock their responses to users paying for the £11/month ($7.99/month) Twitter Blue subscription.
In a post on X, the social media site’s official account explained how ‘you can now limit replies to verified users’ and shared a picture of the new option in action.
Upon making a post, users are now given the option to limit who can reply – with options for everyone, verified accounts, accounts you follow, or only accounts you mention.
While Musk says that this feature is intended to limit the number of bots on the platform, many site users are skeptical.
Users of the social media platform have raised their concerns that the site is becoming increasingly unwelcome to non-paying users.
‘How long before “only” verified accounts can reply at all?’ asked one irate commenter.
Another wrote that ‘it’s going to be very hard to be on this platform without a verified badge.’
While one commenter joked: ‘Can we limit them to exclude verified users?’
Others accused Musk of silencing or censoring users who would not or could not afford to pay for Twitter Blue.
‘This is censoring people who don’t pay’, one user said, while another said they would not be ‘silencing my followers/friends who aren’t verified.’
Elon Musk, a self-described ‘free speech absolutist’ has previously courted controversy with his attempts to balance free expression against the risk of spam and harassment.
In August, these changes caused an uproar as X announced plans to axe the ‘block’ feature, removing users’ ability to avoid harassment and spam from other users.
This move sparked serious concerns that many users would be subjected to increased levels of abuse on the platform with no way of restricting the comments of others.
X’s current official policy on free speech is ‘freedom of speech not freedom of reach’.
