Twitter has temporarily limited the number of tweets users can view in a day, according to Elon Musk, after thousands of users encountered difficulties accessing the website.
Mr. Musk, who purchased Twitter for 44 billion dollars (£35.5 billion) in October, revealed on Saturday that verified accounts will only be able to read 6,000 posts every day.
According to him, new unverified accounts are only allowed to read 300 posts per day and unverified accounts can only read 600 posts per day.
In a later tweet, the billionaire added: “Rate limits increasing soon to 8,000 for verified, 800 for unverified & 400 for new unverified.”
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said Twitter had imposed the “temporary limit” to “address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation”.
Mr. Musk has not specified a specific date for the limits to rise or the duration of the restrictions.
According to the website Downdetector, which analyzes internet outages, a peak of 5,126 individuals in the UK reported having trouble accessing the site at 4:12 PM on Saturday after reports of outages starting rolling in at 12 PM.
According to the website, 7,461 Americans had reported problems as of 4.15 pm UK time.
#Twitterdown and RIP Twitter began trending as frustrated users were faced with a message saying “Rate limit exceeded. Please wait a few moments then try again”.
In what Elon Musk dubbed a “temporary emergency measure,” those seeking to visit Twitter on Friday were informed that they would need to join in to an account to view messages.
It follows another outage in February when numerous users were unable to view their direct messages, follow accounts, or tweet due to the platform’s persistent technical issues.
Approximately 80% of Twitter’s 8,000 global employees were laid off after Mr. Musk took over. He acknowledged that this had a negative impact on the platform’s functionality.
In addition, he coordinated the replacement of the old “blue ticks” that validated a user’s identification with Twitter Blue, a paid membership.
Celebrities and prominent people have claimed that the change leaves the network vulnerable to fake accounts and misinformation.
Users can send longer tweets up to 10,000 characters and obtain the blue tick if they pay £9.60 per month or £115.20 annually.
Non-fungible token (NFT) profile images, editing previously published tweets, and viewing about 50% fewer adverts are further exclusive features that are only available to subscribers.
According to Twitter, the platform “elevates quality conversations”.
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
Prior to purchasing the platform, entrepreneur Mr. Musk disclosed plans to transform it into “X, the everything app”.
Just a few weeks after the acquisition, in December, Elon Musk tweeted: “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job.”
The commitment was made after a poll Mr. Musk sponsored and vowed to follow found that millions of Twitter users wanted him to resign.
In May, Mr. Musk announced that veteran NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino would take over as Twitter’s CEO.
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