In a bid to tackle the rising issues of data scraping and system manipulation, Twitter has announced temporary limits on the number of posts users can read on a daily basis. These restrictions come as a response to the escalating problem of individuals exploiting the platform for nefarious purposes. Elon Musk, the prominent entrepreneur and Twitter user, confirmed the new limitations in a tweet on Saturday.
The imposed restrictions vary depending on the type of account. Verified accounts, which have undergone a verification process to confirm their authenticity, are now limited to reading 6000 posts per day. Unverified accounts, on the other hand, are restricted to 600 posts per day, while newly created unverified accounts have a limit of 300 posts per day.
Over the weekend, Twitter users from various countries reported difficulties accessing the micro-blogging platform, speculating that a global outage had occurred. Online service disruptions tracker, Down Detector, recorded a significant influx of users visiting the website to discuss their experiences during the alleged outage. Users expressed frustration when attempting to view or post tweets, encountering the error message “Cannot retrieve tweets.”
To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits:
– Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
– Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
– New unverified accounts to 300/day— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023
However, it is worth noting that the reported outage did not affect a large number of users worldwide. Downdetector’s data indicates that 45 percent of the reported problems were related to the Twitter mobile app, 40 percent were associated with the website, and the remaining 15 percent involved issues with the feed. Despite the widespread user complaints, Twitter has not officially acknowledged the occurrence of an outage at this time.
Further information regarding the situation is eagerly awaited, and it remains to be seen how the new limitations on post reading will impact user experiences on the platform. Twitter’s proactive approach to address data scraping and system manipulation reflects their commitment to maintaining a safe and trustworthy environment for their user base.
Elon Musk received numerous negative responses due to the perception that his company was restricting free user access on the application, leveraging it as a means to promote the paid option, Twitter Blue. A Twitter user expressed their dissatisfaction by stating, “Please cease the practice of turning Twitter into a ‘pay-to-win’ platform.”
