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Ripple CTO David Schwartz has opposed Elon Musk’s move to charge new users “a small fee” before engaging posts on X (formerly Twitter).
X Daily News, an account dedicated to reporting the latest developments about Musk’s social media platform, sparked the conversation by uncovering a freshly updated policy concerning user engagement.
Per the disclosure, X plans to demand a small annual fee from new accounts before they can engage in posting, liking, replying, or bookmarking posts on the platform. This initiative aims to mitigate the proliferation of automated bots and spam accounts.
Moreover, the update highlighted that the new policy was already in force for X users in New Zealand and the Philippines.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk himself affirmed the new policy in a reply to the post. He emphasized that implementing a small fee for new user write access is necessary to combat the relentless onslaught of bots. Musk pointed out that current AI and troll farms have advanced to the point where they can easily pass “Are you a bot” tests.
Furthermore, the X CTO highlighted the implications of spam accounts, noting that the flood of fake accounts also exhausts the available namespace, resulting in many desirable handles lost to bots.
Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots.
Current AI (and troll farms) can pass “are you a bot” with ease.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2024
Ripple CTO Reacts
Several leading figures in the crypto community have reacted to this development, including Ripple’s CTO. Schwartz perceives the move as a contradiction to Elon Musk’s longstanding proposition for free speech.
“I thought you were against censoring any lawful speech on your platform,” Schwartz asked in response to Musk.
Schwartz further questioned whether keeping certain lawful speech off X solely because it is annoying is significant enough for Elon Musk to alter a fundamental principle of the platform.
I thought you were against censoring any lawful speech on your platform. Now, keeping some lawful speech off X just because it's annoying is so important that you're going to change the fundamental dynamics of the site to make it possible?! https://t.co/bSznL7f1gl
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) April 15, 2024
In response, an X user pointed out that the distinction is between silencing bots and silencing an entire side of the political spectrum.
However, Ripple’s CTO countered by highlighting that the difference lies in speech one cares about versus speech one does not care about. He emphasized the importance of not pretending to do anything other than defending speech that aligns with one’s preferences.
“Small Fee” May not Deter Crypto Spam
On the other hand, prominent crypto investigator ZachXBT suggested that Elon Musk’s decision to charge new accounts to prevent spam may not yield the desired result.
He pointed out the existence of numerous “business-verified” scam crypto accounts for which scammers have paid thousands of dollars. Essentially, ZachXBT argued that a small fee may not be enough to deter bad actors.
Notably, bots and spam accounts have repeatedly targeted crypto enthusiasts, especially the XRP Army. They relentlessly advertise sham XRP giveaways with the images of Ripple executives to lend credibility to their schemes. However, Ripple has continuously warned XRP enthusiasts against the fraud.