Now X posts can lock replies to solely permit remark from verified accounts

The newest flip within the Elon Musk-directed platform X, beforehand often known as Twitter, is that customers can now block unverified accounts from replying to their posts.

This alteration arrives about 11 months after Musk launched paid verification for Twitter Blue, apportioning blue checkmark labels to folks prepared to half with $7.99 per thirty days. It additionally means it might be more durable for many who don’t pay for the service (excluding accounts pressured into verified standing) to refute misinformation, which researchers report has continued to extend.

There’s an argument that limiting replies to accounts verified by cost, telephone quantity, or maybe even authorities ID may scale back harassment, trolling, and misinformation.

Nonetheless, that argument is shortly undone, whether or not by the continued presence of bots with verified labels or a fast take a look at the present state of the platform. Since X already prioritizes replies from verified accounts, it’s simple to guage the standard of threads populated by paid checkmark posters. One response to X’s put up saying the characteristic’s availability, from “Dave the reply man,” gleefully referred to as it “pay to win mode.”