X, the social networking platform formerly known as Twitter, continues to dig a hole for itself as its now owner Elon Musk suggests charging every user of the platform.

The idea came about during a livestream roundtable hosted on the X account of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Musk mentioned this is to curb the number of bots on the platform.

“A bot costs a fraction of a penny,” said Musk. “But if somebody even has to pay a few dollars or something, some minor amount, the effective cost to bots is very high,” he added.

If it does push through, Musk said the cost won’t be as high as X Premium — the current paid tier that already exists on the platform.

X Premium affords subscribers features like longer posts, the ability to edit posts, revenue sharing, and more.

Twitter officially rebranded to X in July 2023. Elon Musk officially became the platform’s owner in October 2022. He has since implemented changes that many users of the platform aren’t a fan of.

The initial rush of Threads users proved that people were clamoring for an alternative to Twitter, now called X. However, the barebones app at the time caused the userbase to drop drastically over the next few weeks since launch. Now, Meta is slowly building its way back up. The next stop in its bounce back tour is a web version rolling out now.

Formerly, going to threads.net launched a landing page where users can download the mobile app. Now, the website will open a web version of the platform. However, as with Instagram, the web version looks exactly like the mobile app but on a browser page. For a change, though, the navigation buttons are on the top of the page, rather than on the bottom.

In terms of functionality, the web version offers the basic functionalities you’d expect from the platform. Users can like, comment, and repost straight from the browser. Likewise, users can also start threads from the version.

If you’re still using the platform, the web version of the platform is a good development. Instead of just relying on your phone, you can now use your PCs or laptops to post new threads. That said, it will likely take some more finagling for Threads to regain the userbase it enjoyed in its first week.

SEE ALSO: Threads already lost 70 percent of its active users

Archiving social media is a real problem today. Because most of public discourse happens through social media platforms, a single break in infrastructure can easily wipe out entire conversations and milestones in the modern era. Over the weekend, that exact scenario happened. A glitch on X reportedly erased most images and links from 2014 and beyond.

As spotted by Tom Coates on the platform, images from before December 2014 disappeared from the site. Likewise, links from the same period are also broken and lead nowhere. Among those that disappeared, one of the most notorious losses was a photo taken by Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscars — a tweet that garnered an enormous amount of retweets at the time.

X has not publicly commented on the supposed glitch. However, after the deletion was noticed, the platform restored the iconic Ellen DeGeneres photo to its full glory. It’s not a complete restoration, though. A lot of content are still missing.

The single photo’s restoration suggests that the content wasn’t outright deleted but rather misplaced. As some have pointed out, a few instances are still directly available from the servers. Users have also speculated that the glitch was intentionally done to free up valuable server space.

Regardless, the glitch — intentional or accidental — opens up an important issue on how the world can archive content on social media platforms. Despite how inane our conversations can be from day to day, losing a section of social media also means losing entire swaths of public discourse to the ether.

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