What stops political campaign money from funding accounts and bots?

$5 is enough for a human to glance at the feed and mute it if it seems bad. The trouble with $0 is you can create a million bots and no one has time to look at them.

I wouldn't mind something like that. When I joined Whatsapp it cost $1 for life and I thought that was a good system. Sadly it's gone, replaced by free but ad funded.

The bots pay monthly for a blue checkmark so that they're promoted to the top of the replies. A small cost does not appear to have been a meaningful disincentive, especially when scammers can easily make that money back and political operatives can easily bankroll that.

Ah, well… y’see that’s where heavy moderation and bans would come in to play, and uhhh…