Elon Musk Implements Daily Limits on Twitter: Changes in Viewing Tweet Restrictions

Elon Musk Implements Daily Limits on Twitter

Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, has implemented a new policy that imposes daily limits on the number of tweets users can view. This move is aimed at preventing unauthorized data scraping and protecting valuable information on the social media platform.

In a departure from its longstanding practice of allowing unrestricted access to tweets and profiles, Twitter now requires users to log in to view content. This change comes after Musk acquired the platform for $44 billion last year, considering it the world's digital town square.

However, these restrictions have caused frustration among users, with many complaining of being locked out of Twitter for the day after scrolling through a few hundred tweets. Thousands of users reported difficulties accessing the site over the weekend.

Musk clarified in a tweet that these limitations are temporary and were necessary due to excessive data scraping, which was negatively impacting the service for regular users. He expressed concern about the misuse of Twitter data to train AI systems like ChatGPT, which generate human-like text, photos, videos, and other content by analyzing vast amounts of online information.

On Saturday, Musk provided more details on the restrictions, stating that unverified accounts would be temporarily limited to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts could view up to 6,000. However, in response to backlash, he increased the thresholds to 800 posts for unverified accounts and 8,000 for verified accounts. Eventually, the limits settled at 1,000 and 10,000 tweets, respectively.

The implementation of these measures had widespread effects, leading to over 7,500 people reporting issues with the social media service on Saturday, as recorded by Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages. While this number represents a fraction of Twitter's 200 million global users, the problems were significant enough to make the hashtag #TwitterDown trend in some regions.

The higher limit for verified accounts is part of a subscription service priced at $8 per month, introduced by Musk earlier this year to bolster Twitter's revenue. Since taking over the company and implementing cost-cutting measures that included significant layoffs, Twitter's financial performance has declined. Advertisers have reduced their spending on the platform, partly due to changes allowing more controversial content that may offend a broader audience.

To address these challenges, Musk recently hired Linda Yaccarino, a former NBC Universal executive, as Twitter's CEO, aiming to win back advertisers and restore the platform's financial stability.

When the Associated Press reached out to Twitter regarding the access issues experienced on Saturday, they received an automated reply that did not address the specific question.