Tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk has issued a stern warning to users doing “engagement farming” activities on his social media platform.
What Happened: Musk has warned users on X, formerly Twitter, about the consequences of “engagement farming” and has threatened to suspend the accounts involved.
"Any accounts doing engagement farming will be suspended and traced to source."
Engagement farming refers to the practice of artificially boosting the engagement metrics of an account, such as likes, retweets, and followers, through the use of automated systems or other means.
On Friday, Musk took to X to address this issue. Accounts found to be artificially boosting engagement metrics could be suspended. A similar policy is also applied on Reddit, where users who engage in vote brigading are suspended.
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Musk did not elaborate on the methods that would be used to trace the source of the engagement farming activities.
Why It Matters: Musk’s warning comes as a response to the increasing prevalence of fake accounts and automated systems on social media platforms, which are used to artificially inflate the popularity of certain users or content.
On Monday, Musk announced that X will start charging a "small fee" to allow new users to post on the social media platform to curb the onslaught of bots.
This was after a test that X carried out in New Zealand and the Philippines in November. Musk’s X introduced a $1 annual subscription fee as part of the "Not A Bot" program to mitigate spam, manipulation, and bot activity.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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