Twitter Imposes Limits On Number Of Tweets Users Can Read; Temporary Measure To Address The Impact Of Data Scraping, System Manipulation
Keneci Channel
[Update] Twitter Gives Update On The Temporary Rate Limits On Tweets
Following recent measure imposed to deter aggressive scrapping and system manipulation by bad actors, Twitter explain in a blog Tuesday, the rationale behind their decisions.
The company writes:
"To ensure the authenticity of our user base we must take extreme measures to remove spam and bots from our platform. That’s why we temporarily limited usage so we could detect and eliminate bots and other bad actors that are harming the platform. Any advance notice on these actions would have allowed bad actors to alter their behavior to evade detection.
At a high level, we are working to prevent these accounts from 1) scraping people’s public Twitter data to build AI models and 2) manipulating people and conversation on the platform in various ways.
Currently, the restrictions affect a small percentage of people using the platform, and we will provide an update when the work is complete. As it relates to our customers, effects on advertising have been minimal.
While this work will never be done, we’re all deeply committed to making Twitter a better place for everyone.
At times, even for a brief moment, you must slow down to speed up"
In her first remarks since the social media company announced the rate limits, CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted: "When you have a mission like Twitter -- you need to make big moves to keep strengthening the platform. This work is meaningful and on-going."
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Elon Musk announced Saturday, in a post that Twitter is limiting the number of tweets per day a user can read. The social media owner revealed that "extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation" allegedly perpetrated by artificial intelligence companies and others, is affecting the performance of the platform.
"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" Musk wrote. The Tesla CEO has since announced increases to the rate limit. It's currently at 10000, 1000 and 500 tweets respectively.
This means after viewing the limited number of tweets you're allowed for the day, you'll be met with a "you have reached your rate limit..." prompt.
Musk further explained in another tweet, that the restriction is a temporary measure that was taken because "we were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users." On Friday, Twitter started requiring users to log into their accounts to view tweets on twitter.com, a move that Musk called a "temporary emergency measure."
The Twitter owner had in the past, expressed displeasure with artificial intelligence firms like OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, for using Twitter's data to train their large language models(LLM).
Saturday's measure drew the ire of users mostly leftists and Musk haters who expressed frustration at the restrictions, because apparently they can't get their fix of tweets for the day.
The outraged left-wing Twitter addicts were mocked by many other users including the social media company's co-founder Jack Dorsey and current owner Musk.
Dorsey tweeted a picture of grass, referencing the "go outside and touch grass" meme.
Musk in a post wrote: "you awake from a deep trance, step away from the phone to see your friends & family."
Most of the leftists outraged by Saturday's restrictions have in the past threatened to leave the platform after Musk purchased it.
"The people who told us they left twitter are outraged they can't read more than 600 posts per day" a user observed. To which Musk replied: "If dying from irony were possible, it would’ve been be a massacre."