Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, has implemented limitations on the number of tweets users can view per day. These restrictions aim to prevent the unauthorized scraping of valuable data from the platform. Previously, Twitter allowed public access to tweets and profiles, but it now requires users to log in to view content—a departure from its longstanding practice. As a result, users may face lockouts if they scroll through a significant number of tweets, which led to numerous complaints about site accessibility on Saturday.
In a tweet on Friday, Musk explained that these restrictions are a temporary measure taken due to excessive data scraping, which was degrading the service for regular users. He has been critical of the misuse of Twitter data to train artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT, which generate human-like text, photos, videos, and other content by analyzing vast amounts of online information.
Musk further elaborated on the limits, stating that unverified accounts will be temporarily restricted to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts can scroll through up to 6,000. However, following backlash, Musk revised these thresholds to 800 posts for unverified accounts and 8,000 for verified accounts, and later settled on 1,000 and 10,000 tweets, respectively.
The implementation of these restrictions had a ripple effect, leading to more than 7,500 users reporting issues with Twitter usage, according to Downdetector. Although this represents a relatively small percentage of Twitter’s global user base of over 200 million, the problem was widespread enough for the hashtag #TwitterDown to trend in some regions.
The higher tweet threshold allowed for verified accounts is part of a subscription service priced at $8 per month, introduced by Musk to boost Twitter’s revenue. Since Musk took over the company and implemented cost-cutting measures, including significant layoffs, Twitter’s revenue has declined. Advertisers have reduced their spending on the platform, partly due to changes that allowed more contentious and offensive content, which offended a broader audience.
In an attempt to regain advertiser confidence, Musk recently hired Linda Yaccarino, a longtime NBC Universal executive, as Twitter’s CEO.
When the Associated Press inquired about the access problems experienced on Saturday, it received a generic automated response from Twitter that did not address the specific question.
