San Francisco, California - Elon Musk is making more big changes to the platform formerly known as Twitter as X begins rolling out a new subscription that will charge new, unverified users $1 each year for basic features.

New users in New Zealand and the Philippines will be the first to trial the so-called "Not A Bot" program, X said in a statement.

"This new program aims to defend against bots and spammers who attempt to manipulate the platform and disrupt the experience of other X users," the company said.

"This will evaluate a potentially powerful measure to help us combat bots and spammers on X, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount."

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Existing users will not be affected by the new subscription service – for now. Those who opt not to pay would be able to take "read only" actions, including reading posts, watching videos, and following accounts. However, they would be unable to like posts, reply, repost, quote or bookmark posts.

Musk in September suggested charging all X users, saying it was the only way to combat the spam and bots that plague the platform.

But the idea was widely panned by users. Industry analysts said it would make X even less appealing to advertisers.