In response to “extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation”, Twitter has implemented temporary reading limits, as announced by the company's owner, Elon Musk. The move has sparked widespread user complaints and led to trending hashtags such as #TwitterDown and #RateLimitExceeded.
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
Twitter Reading Limits and User Reactions
Verified Twitter accounts were initially limited to reading 6,000 posts per day, a number later increased to 10,000. Unverified accounts, on the other hand, were initially limited to 600 posts per day, later increased to 1,000, while new unverified accounts were limited to 300 posts per day, later increased to 500. The announcement led to thousands of Twitter users reporting problems with the service, including the inability to retrieve tweets, missing timelines, and disappearing followers.
Outage Reports and User Frustration
Reports of the outage began at 12:19 pm UK time, with thousands of people complaining of issues on the Down Detector site. The issues persisted for several hours, leading to user frustration. Many users received the message ‘rate-limit exceeded' on their For You page, a page usually consisting of non-stop personal, curated content.
Musk's Ownership and User Criticism
Elon Musk, who completed a $44bn (£35bn) takeover of the social media site in October 2022, has faced criticism from users for the platform's issues since his acquisition. Some users have reported more problems since Musk took over than they had experienced before his tenure. The latest issues come after a major outage on the site in March, soon after the company's most recent round of layoffs.
