Erik ten Hag has criticised Man Utd's forward line for their performance in their narrow 1-0 win over Wolves on Monday evening.

French President Emmanuel Macron denounced "new imperialism" in the Pacific during a landmark visit to the region on Thursday, warning of a threat to...

xQc announced that he was co-owner of the well-known 'GTA' roleplay server NoPixel

The San Antonio Spurs are about to get a new practice home just in time for No. 1 draft pick Victor Wembanyama's rookie season

The shirt number that Darwin Nunez is most likley to wear at Liverpool in 2023/24.

By Stella Qiu SYDNEY When Michele Bullock takes over as the first woman to head Australia's central bank

Whoopi Goldberg avoids blunders by heading to a commercial break, but this time, she simply shook it off with a disappointed look on her face and a little chuckle

Suncor Energy Inc. agreed to buy TotalEnergies SE’s stake in the Fort Hills oil-sands mine for C$1.47 billion

The European Union’s foreign policy chief says that the U.S. green light to allow Ukrainian pilots get training to fly F-16s has created an inexorable momentum that will inevitably bring the fighter jets to the Ukrainian battlefield

By Fanny Potkin and Panu Wongcha-um SINGAPORE/BANGKOK (Reuters) -Southeast Asian countries are drawing up governance and ethics guidelines for artificial

Adin Ross said, 'People have no right to talk or judge, bro, you don't know what the f**k he's thinking, I'm not defending cheating, by the way'

Elon Musk’s X is planning to charge users in New Zealand and the Philippines joining via the platform’s web application $1 per year as part of its programme to reduce bot activity. The subscription is part of X’s “Not A Bot” programme, which attempts to “bolster our already significant efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity”, the company noted in a help centre post on its website on Tuesday. As part of the pilot programme, new users signing up via the website in the two countries will also be required to verify their account with a phone number, the unsigned post said. It remained unclear why the subscription programme is being rolled out only in these two countries, and exclusively for new users joining via the X website, and not the mobile app. However, Not a Bot’s terms and conditions suggested that people may also subscribe to the programme from X’s iOS and Android apps, while the main help centre post only specified web. X did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment. “As of October 17th, 2023 we’ve started testing “Not A Bot”, a new subscription method for new users in two countries,” the company posted. “This will evaluate a potentially powerful measure to help us combat bots and spammers on X, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. Within this test, existing users are not affected,” it said. New users from the two countries who opt to subscribe with $1 will for the web version of the platform will be able to post content, like posts, reply, repost and quote other accounts’ posts, as well as bookmark posts, X noted. However, those who opt out of this subscription in the web application “will only be able to take ‘read only’ actions, such as: Read posts, Watch videos, and Follow accounts,” the company stated. “This new programme aims to defend against bots and spammers who attempt to manipulate the platform and disrupt the experience of other X users. We look forward to sharing more about the results soon,” it added. The latest programme is also in addition of X’s premium $8 subscription option. Commenting on a post on X about the new programme, Mr Musk called it “the only way to fight bots without blocking real users.” “Correct, read for free, but $1/year to write. This won’t stop bots completely, but it will be 1000X harder to manipulate the platform,” the multibillionaire said. X’s latest decision is in line with the Tesla titan’s aim to curb bot activity on the platform since before his takeover of then-Twitter in November last year. He has also held from the beginning that charging users would curb bot activity on the social media platform even though it has been found that only a small fraction of users subscribe to its $8 premium service. But the multibillionaire has continued to hold that a subscription fee would make it harder for bots to create accounts since each bot would need a new credit card to register on the platform. “It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,” Mr Musk said last month. “Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny – call it a tenth of a penny – but even if it has to pay a few dollars or something, the effective cost of bots is very high,” he added. Read More EU to investigate X’s handling of disinformation over Hamas attack on Israel EU asks Elon Musk to ‘walk the talk’ on X/Twitter disinformation over Hamas attack How Elon Musk’s Twitter became a haven for fake news and misinformation Viral hate and misinformation amid Israel-Hamas crisis renew fears of real-world violence Instagram Threads adds edit button and voice notes as it attempts to take over from Twitter EU opens investigation into X’s handling of disinformation over Hamas attack on Israel