Elon Musk, on Sunday, left the Internet abuzz after he announced that soon only verified users on X, formerly Twitter, will be allowed to participate in the polls.
Mr Musk revealed that this change is being done to prevent bots from swaying the results.
It happened after writer and entrepreneur Brian Krassenstein responded to Mr Musk's post claiming that he had noticed “pretty extreme” bot activities around polls.
Mr. Brian wrote, “You really have to make the option to only allow for blue checkmarks to participate in polls. I've noticed that the bot activity around the polls are pretty extreme. As for the ADL, I get that sometimes they over-label things. With that said, there has been a lot accomplished over the last 110 years from the ADL.”
In response to his tweet, Mr Musk said, “Agreed on all. We are changing polls to allow votes only by verified users. That's critical to avoid polls getting bot-spammed on controversial issues. The ADL has done a lot of good work in prior decades, but has been overzealous in recent years & hijacked by woke mind virus.”
Mr Musk's comment comes a few months after he announced that from April 15 only verified accounts would be eligible to vote on polls. He also added that only verified users will be eligible to be in For You recommendations on the platform. In case you don't know, For You recommendations display a stream of tweets from accounts on X.
Last year, Mr. Musk claimed that the platform would restrict voting on policy-related polls.
Soon after this announcement, the tech billionaire claimed it to be the “only realistic” way to address the issue of AI bots swarming the platform. Elon Musk said, “It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle.” With his decision, Mr Musk wished to make X the most trusted platform, as he said, “My prediction is that this will be the only platform you can trust.”
