A | LONDON -- Elon Musk's social media platform X has begun charging a $1 fee to new users in the Philippines and New Zealand, in a test designed to cut down on the spam and fake accounts flourishing on the site formerly known as Twitter. The company said late Tuesday that it has started trying out the annual subscription method for new and unverified accounts. The program, dubbed Not a Bot, won't apply to existing users. It's not clear why it only applies to New Zealand and the Philippines or why those countries were chosen. “This new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount,” the X support account tweeted. “It is not a profit driver.” Since Musk bought X a year ago, he has introduced a slew of changes such as renaming the platform and gutting its workforce — including its content moderation team. Outside watchdog groups say the changes have allowed misinformation to thrive on the platform, a problem that exploded after the Israel-Hamas war erupted. Musk previously turned to premium subscriptions as a tactic to boost the financially struggling platform’s revenue. One of his first product moves was to shake up the site's blue check verification system by launching a service granting checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month. A flood of impostor accounts forced the service's temporary suspension days after launch.Under the test, new subscribers will get access to basic functions like posting content, liking or bookmarking posts, and reposting, quoting or replying to posts from other accounts. The platform said new users who don't subscribe will only be able to read posts, watch videos and follow other accounts.。 Moscow, Oct 19 (UNI) Over five million people have attended the online Russian Film Festival (RFF) in China, with fantastic drama Attraction, drama Salyut-7 and comedy Partner leading in viewership, the press service of the Russian state movie agency Roskino reported on Wednesday.
"The Russian Film Festival, held online on one of the world's largest Tencent Video platforms from September 26 to October 15, has ended in China. More than 5 million people have become viewers," the report said.
In three weeks, Chinese viewers were able to watch 17 Russian films of different genres for free. According to the report, the top three films in terms of number of views included fantastic drama about aliens Attraction directed by Fyodor Bondarchuk, drama Salyut-7 directed by Klim Shipenko and Alexander Andryushchenko's comedy Partner.
Chinese audience could also watch such recent Russian hits as disaster movie Metro, sports drama Upward Movement, space drama The Time of the First, comedy I'm losing weight, and thriller trilogy based on the works of great Russian classic Nikolai Gogol, Gogol.The beginning, Gogol.Viy, Gogol.Terrible Revenge, among others.
"This is a great result, and we are glad that the Chinese audience appreciated the modern Russian cinema. The preferences of the audience confirm the trend towards science fiction and spectacular pictures with powerful visual effects in the Chinese film market. The undisputed leader was the sci-fi film Attraction by Fyodor Bondarchuk, it was watched by more than 2.5 million people. In general, there has always been a request for spectacular large-scale action in China, which is confirmed by other films from the TOP 5: Salyut-7, Metro, Upward Movement. The Russian Film Festival in China has become the most successful event in the entire history of the RFF project, and we are already in dialogue with Chinese partners about areas of cooperation in 2023," Roskino General Director Inna Shalyto said.
The director of Attraction, Fyodor Bondarchuk, noted that Chinese viewers today can rightfully be called the most devoted audience of blockbusters, adding that it is "a great joy" for Roskino to gain recognition from the Chinese moviegoers well acquainted with this genre, according to the report.
The RFF is part of the days of Russian cinema abroad, which have been held by Roskino with the support of the Russian culture ministry since 2020. The main goal of the RFF is to introduce foreign viewers to a variety of modern Russian content. In 2020-2021, the festival took place in 23 countries, attracting over a million viewers. In 2022, the RFF has already been held in many countries, including Brazil, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Belarus, Uzbekistan. The festival is held both in online and offline formats.
UNI/SPUTNIK GNK。
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