Elon Musk Limits Daily Tweet Views – According to The Associated Press, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, has implemented limitations on the number of tweets users can view each day. This move is aimed at preventing unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data from the platform. As a result, Twitter now requires users to log in to access tweets and profiles, which is a departure from its previous practice of allowing unrestricted browsing.
This change follows Musk’s acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion last year. However, these restrictions have led to some users being locked out of Twitter for the day if they exceed a certain number of tweets viewed. On Saturday, numerous users expressed their frustration about not being able to access the site.
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In a Friday tweet, Musk described the new restrictions as a temporary measure that was taken because “we were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!” Elon Musk has expressed concerns about the misuse of Twitter data for training AI systems like ChatGPT, which generate human-like text, photos, videos, and other content by analyzing vast amounts of online information.
Musk further explained the limitations on Saturday, stating that unverified accounts would temporarily be limited to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts could scroll through up to 6,000 posts. In response to the backlash, Musk later tweeted that the thresholds would be increased to 800 posts for unverified accounts and 8,000 for verified accounts. Eventually, he settled on the limits of 1,000 posts for unverified accounts and 10,000 for verified accounts.
As a consequence of these measures, there was a notable impact, with over 7,500 individuals at one point on Saturday reporting difficulties using the Twitter platform, according to complaints recorded on Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages.
While this number represents a small portion of Twitter’s worldwide user base of over 200 million, the issues were widespread enough to cause the hashtag #TwitterDown to trend in certain regions. Elon Musk introduced a subscription service earlier this year, priced at $8 per month, which offers verified accounts a higher threshold for accessing tweets.
This initiative aimed to increase Twitter’s revenue, which has declined significantly since Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, acquired the company and implemented cost-cutting measures such as laying off approximately three-fourths of the workforce to avoid bankruptcy.
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The reduction in advertising spending on Twitter by advertisers can be attributed in part to changes that have allowed more controversial and offensive content, which has alienated a wider section of the platform’s audience.
In an attempt to regain the trust of advertisers, Musk recently appointed Linda Yaccarino, a veteran executive from NBC Universal, as Twitter’s CEO. When The Associated Press inquired about the access issues experienced on Saturday, a generic automated response, typically sent by Twitter to most media queries, was received without addressing the specific question.