Days after AI Spam warning, X rolls out automation detection measures: ‘If a human is not tapping on the screen…’

Elon Musk led social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has started rolling out spam and automation detection measures. The announcement was made by X Product Head Nikita Bier, who warned developers about using AI to scrape data from the platform.

X sends chilling warning to developers:

While Bier did not explain the reasons behind the aggressive detection measures being rolled out by X, the move comes amid a rise of autonomous AI agents and the rise of open agent platforms like OpenClaw.

“We are rolling out more detection for automation & spam (and a lot more to come). If a human is not tapping on the screen, the account and all associated accounts will likely be suspended — even if you’re just experimenting.” Bier wrote in a post on X.

“While we aim to support legitimate use-cases of agents, this will take some time to do properly. For now, we recommend holding off on plugging in your bots. If it’s critical, you can use the official API.” he added.

In reply to a post, Bier went on to warn that any form of scraping will be detected by the platform.

“Use the official API all you want. But any form of scraping or search that is automated will get caught currently.” he wrote.

Just days ago, Bier had warned about the threat posed to current communication platforms like Gmail and iMessage, which he said would become virtually ‘unusable’ due to the rise of OpenClaw that has made the technology behind creating spammy bots easier to access than ever.

“In less than 90 days, all channels that we thought were safe from spam & automation will be so flooded that they will no longer be usable in any functional sense: iMessage, phone calls, Gmail.” Bier had said then.

What is OpenClaw?

OpenClaw is an open-source framework that had recently gained popularity after the rise of Moltbook. The framework allows users to run autonomous AI agents on their machines and connect to the apps that they already use like WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Teams and more.

Unlike traditional chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini that have to wait for commands from users, OpenClaw agents can take multi-step actions on behalf of the users, like controlling a web browser, sending messages and even managing files on a computer.

While the platform is intended as a productivity tool, there have been concerns raised that it essentially democratizes industrial-grade spamming. Since OpenClaw runs on a user’s machine, the traffic source comes from a legitimate IP address, which also makes it difficult for platforms to distinguish between a real human being and an OpenClaw agent.