Elon Musk, a billionaire and tech mogul, is implementing new rules for his recently acquired social media platform, Twitter.
The Tesla CEO has been making changes to the app ever since he purchased the virtual town square in October 2022, including laying off half of its global workforce and charging a subscription fee for users who want to be verified on the platform.
Musk revealed new changes on Tuesday to prevent “advanced AI bot swarms taking over” the platform.
He claimed that only verified accounts would be able to appear on the app’s “For you” recommendation tab.
The ‘For You’ tab features tweets recommended by Twitter’s algorithm to users, by persons whom they may or may not be following.
“Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations,” Musk tweeted.
“This is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle.”
Musk also added that our verified users can vote on polls created on the app. He however did not specify if non-verified persons can create polls or not.
Surprisingly, the billionaire who almost pulled out of the deal to purchase the app due to the alleged prevalence of bot accounts has stated that verified bot accounts will be allowed to remain on the app.
“It’s ok to have verified bot accounts if they follow terms of service and don’t impersonate a human,” he continued.
The app launched its Twitter Blue subscription service in November 2022, shortly after Musk took over the company’s reins. For an eight-dollar fee for Android users, and eleven dollar fee for iOS users, Blue subscribers got the verified check marks. They also got new perks such as editing their tweets, posting longer videos and seeing fewer ads.