Twitter, now rebranded X, to start charging users a fee in order to send unlimited DMs

Now rebranded as simply X, Twitter has announced plans to impose daily limits on the number of direct messages (DMs) unverified accounts can send to combat spam. Users must subscribe to Twitter Blue, now known as XBlue, a paid subscription service, to have unlimited DMs. As well as changing Twitter's handle to X, introducing @X and Twitter Blue to @XBlue.

The tweet made by Twitter’s Support account did not specify the daily DM limit for unverified accounts but changes are set to begin before the end of July.

Spam on Twitter has been a major issue for Musk even before he acquired the social app last year. The acquisition had to be put on hold temporarily as Musk awaited evidence supporting Twitter's claim that bots and spam constituted less than five percent of its monthly active users.

The new announcement comes a week after Twitter introduced a new DM setting that the company said was also meant to reduce spam. However, similar to daily DM limits, the DM setting was yet another subtle way for Twitter to push its subscription plan.

With the new setting, messages from verified users you don’t follow will be moved to the secondary “message request” inbox instead of your main inbox if you have your DMs open. This change also prevents non-Twitter Blue subscribers from sending messages unless you adjust the settings accordingly.

Earlier this month, Musk also implemented temporary rate limits on reading tweets, giving Twitter Blue subscribers access to more tweets than unverified users. It’s unclear if these rate limits are still in effect.

Now the name change to X has been implemented, users first have to get used to the new name, which has not gone too well on social media.