By John Ikani
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced on Saturday a temporary limitation on the number of tweets users can read, following widespread reports of difficulties accessing Twitter.
In a tweet on Saturday, Musk revealed that he is implementing a cap on the number of tweets users can read daily.
The decision comes amidst reports of widespread problems with accessing the social media platform.
According to Musk, verified accounts will now be limited to reading only 6,000 posts per day. However, the restrictions become more stringent for unverified accounts, with their daily reading quota slashed to a mere 600 posts.
As for new unverified users, they are allowed access to only 300 posts per day.
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
Clarifying the motive behind this move, Musk stated that the change is temporary and aims to combat issues related to “extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation.”
This is not the first time Twitter has encountered such difficulties since Musk took over the reins of the social media site late last year.
The outage led to thousands of frustrated users encountering error messages such as “Rate limit exceeded” or “Cannot retrieve tweets” when attempting to access or post content on Twitter’s website or mobile app.
Downdetector, a website monitoring service, received reports from more than 7,300 individuals about problems with Twitter.
It’s worth noting that Twitter has faced technical difficulties in recent months.
In February, users experienced a 90-minute period during which they were unable to post on the site, receiving a message stating, “You are over the daily limit for sending Tweets.”
In March, users faced temporary issues clicking on links or loading images.
The outages have coincided with reports of a data centre closure and significant layoffs at Twitter, which Musk claimed were essential for the company’s financial well-being.
The latest move to limit daily tweets might be a strategic measure to tackle ongoing challenges faced by the platform.
