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Elon Musk Reveals Details Of Latest X Plan To Fight Bots
The changes come as many users feel the site is becoming swamped by hordes of fake accounts and trolls.
After a recent post by CEO Elon Musk it seems that changes are incoming at X, the social site formerly known as Twitter.
Musk says a new system to rid the platform of bots and trolls is “underway”, while asking users to reply to his post or ping his official account @XEng if their legitimate accounts are suspended in error.
System purge of bots & trolls underway.
Please reply to me or @XEng if legitimate accounts are suspended.
X Corp will be tracing the people responsible and bringing the full force of the law to bear upon them.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 4, 2024
“X Corp will be tracing the people responsible and bringing the full force of the law to bear upon them,” Elon Musk said, without providing further details.
The announcement comes after X’s appointment of a new head of brand safety and advertiser solutions in what it said was a bid to make the platform “a better, safer space for everyone”.
Automated accounts have long been a problem for the site and regularly reply to posts in a nonsensical or unrelated manner. Recent developments in AI make the bots harder to spot, though many users have a general feeling something is “off” with the platform, which often appears completely void of real human interaction.
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The latest round of bot-fighting measures will be a “significant, proactive initiative to eliminate accounts that violate [its] Rules against platform manipulation and spam,” X’s team announced yesterday, adding that they are “casting a wide net to ensure X remains secure and free of bots”.
Musk’s bot and troll crackdown coincides with the return of the controversial blue checkmark system on Wednesday evening. Users who had blue checks reinstated were told that they had been given a complimentary Premium subscription because they were considered “an influential member of the community.”
The outspoken SpaceX and Tesla CEO posted details last week that accounts with over 2,500 verified followers will have blue checks reinstated for free, while those with 5,000+ followers will get a complimentary $16-per-month Premium+ plan.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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