In a post on Saturday, Executive Chair Elon Musk revealed that Twitter will be imposing limits on the number of tweets users can read per day in order to discourage excessive data scraping and system manipulation. The move comes as a response to the growing concern over “extreme levels” of data scraping and its negative impact on user experience.
Varied Limits for Verified and Unverified Accounts
According to Musk, verified accounts were initially restricted to reading 6,000 posts per day. Unverified accounts will now be limited to 600 posts, while new unverified accounts will have a limit of 300. However, Musk later stated in a separate post that the temporary reading limitation has been increased to 10,000 posts per day for verified users, 1,000 posts per day for unverified users, and 500 posts per day for new unverified users. Further details regarding the change were not provided.
Twitter’s Measures to Address Data Scraping Concerns
This decision follows Twitter’s recent announcement that users will now need to have an account on the platform to view tweets, a measure described by Musk as a “temporary emergency measure.” Musk expressed concerns over the aggressive scraping of Twitter data by hundreds of organizations, emphasizing its detrimental effect on user experience.
Twitter Outage Disrupts User Access
In related news, on Saturday morning, Twitter experienced an outage that affected thousands of users. According to Downdetector.com, approximately 7,500 users reported issues with accessing the app during the peak of the outage at around 11:17 AM ET.
Efforts Under Musk’s Ownership to Attract Advertisers and Boost Subscription Revenue
Under Musk’s ownership, Twitter has taken various steps to regain advertisers who left the platform and increase subscription revenue. One such initiative includes incorporating verification check marks into the Twitter Blue program.
(Islamabad51-Newsdesk)
