Twitter to Allow Media Publishers to Charge Users for Reading Articles from Next Month, Says Elon Musk

Twitter will now allow media publishers to charge a fee to users for reading articles at the social media platform from next month, the company’s CEO Elon Musk said on Saturday.

Billionaire owner Musk took to Twitter to announce the new initiative, and called it a “win-win” for both the media organizations and the public.

“Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per article basis with one click,” Musk said.

“This enables users who would not sign up for a monthly subscription to pay a higher per article price for when they want to read an occasional article,” he added.

This comes as the social media giant is looking to monetize content on the website in a bid to diversify its revenue sources.

On Friday, Musk had announced that Twitter will take a 10 per cent cut on content subscriptions after the first year.

Earlier this month, Musk said users of the social media platform will be able to offer their followers subscriptions to content, including long-form text and hours-long video.

He had also said that the company will not take a cut for the first 12 months on content subscriptions.

Musk has been bringing in changes at Twitter to boost revenue after the platform saw advertising income drop last year in the run up to his $44 billion acquisition that closed in October, according to news agency Reuters.

He added that the company’s cut from subscriptions on iOS and Android platforms will drop to 15 per cent in the second year from 30 per cent in the first.

In another development, Twitter accounts of NDTV and news agency ANI were suspended on Saturday after their main handles were locked, and there was no specific reason given for that, Reuters said.

ANI editor Smita Prakash tweeted a screenshot of the news agency’s handle being locked, with the message from Twitter stating the account “did not meet the age requirements” to be on the platform and would be removed.

NDTV’s other account @ndtvindia tweeted their main handle had been blocked, tagging Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s official handle, asking for the suspended account to be restored.

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