Twitter is limiting the number of posts users can read
After shutting off anonymous access to the site, Twitter owner Elon Musk announced the introduction of rate limits for registered users.
According to Musk's initial announcement on Twitter, fired off as a tweet on the site, Twitter is limiting daily reads for all accounts on the site. The number of allowed reads depends on the account type.
The initial numbers were 6000 daily reads for verified accounts, 600 reads for unverified accounts and 300 for new unverified accounts. Musk called these measures temporary to address "extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation".
He increased the limits twice since his initial announcement. Verified accounts, those who pay a monthly subscription fee, have a limit of 10,000 reads per day as it stands. Similarly, unverified accounts, those who do not pay Twitter a monthly fee, had their daily reads increased to 1000 posts. New unverified accounts, finally, had their daily read limits increased to 500.
The daily read limit may look sufficient, but limits are reached quickly, considering that scrolling the timeline of a topic or a Twitter user can quickly accumulate dozens if not hundreds of posts.
Twitter users documented read limit errors in numerous tweets on the site already. Some users also claimed to have received error messages about reached rate limits before the limits were announced officially by Musk.
Musk did not provide further information on the data scraping and system manipulation claim. Critics of the changes suggest that the real reason for making the changes may have an increase of paying subscribers as the underlying motive rather than protecting Twitter against scrapers and attempts to use the site's data for the training of Large Language Models.
Developer Sheldon Chang noticed that Twitter's new read limits were causing the site to self-DDOS itself. DDOS, Distributed Denial of Service, attacks attempt to overload services with requests. Twitter's implementation of rate limits seems to have the same effect, only that it was implemented by the site itself and not an outside force.
He published a Developer Tools screenshot that showed about 10 requests per second that Twitter performed for users who reached their limits.
Closing Words
Musk stated that the limitations are temporary, but he failed to provide an outlook. Twitter has become barely usable for a lot of users in the past couple of days. First, by blocking access for users who do not have an account; this alone may have severe consequences for the site. Since non-Twitter users do not see tweets anymore, sharing tweets with them is no longer something that many users will do.
For registered users, the situation is almost equally worse. The rate limits are low, especially for paying customers, and the error messages mean that users will run into roadblocks eventually. While the measures may push signups and subscriptions, it may also lead to users closing their accounts or letting them sit idly.
Now You: what is your take on the latest development?
Can someone please tell me …
I understand the limits (i am unverified user for many years, so my limit is 1000/day, right?).
But if i go to any Twitter user page (News outlet, any sports person’s page, etc …), i can only see the last 10 or so of their tweets. I can’t scroll down any further.
Why? I’m still well below the 1000/day limit.
Like Musk, Twitter has become so broken, it is now useless.
Evil bedfellows like Musk and Trump deserve each other. They are nothing but self-centered, narcissistic, and childish fools who never developed into mature empathetic adults.
History reveals that their failure, thankfully, is inevitable. Evil can show its ugly head temporarily, but eventually the good will expose their evil and work towards removing their ugly momentary stain.
+ add sociopathic
I only go to Twitter for weather alerts. If its gone tomorrow I don’t care.
Use Mastodon instead:
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon
Wouldn’t limiting the number of viewed tweets also limit the number of ads shown?
Elon and Trump can have Twitter…. I’m done with it.
I’d like to thank Elon skuM for doing this.
Despite my aversion to so-called “social media”, Twitter crept up on me in the last couple of years, and I was following several feeds.
I never signed in, just viewed via Nitter. Now that this change has broken Nitter, I’ve removed Twitter from my life, which is what I should have done earlier.
if need be you can still access latest 20 tweets of an account via:
https://syndication.twitter.com/srv/timeline-profile/screen-name/ghacks
New CEO comes in.
Hell I’m Elon Musk, I’ll just undermine her immediately and her ability to actually get Twitter to make money.
Should this be an explanation or a pretext?
“Elon Musk blames data scraping by AI startups for his new paywalls on reading tweets”
[https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/1/23781198/twitter-daily-reading-limit-elon-musk-verified-paywall]
“What is your take on the latest development?”
Great! Further reductions needed; Twitter is such a toxic waste of time with more disinformation/misinformation propagated than any other media tool; users need Musk to limit their exposure.
Maybe 10 per day.
More like “extreme levels migrating a lot of their services off of Google Cloud infrastructure before their five year contract expired, because they can’t afford it anymore”.
?
> More like “extreme levels migrating a lot of their services off of Google Cloud infrastructure before their five year contract expired, because they can’t afford it anymore”.
That’s also right!
Elon Musk’s erratic word and action (similar to Trump, Putin, and Kim Jong Il) has stunned Twitter’s major shareholders and corporate sponsors, Motions for dismissal have been issued, “canceling of funding” has continued, people with good sense have left, resulting in a loss of capital.
In addition, the risk of default (bankruptcy) at the deadline for debt redemption is also exposed.
Most of the lenders and sponsors so far have denied Elon Musk’s Twitter, and while the sponsors are leaving, the acquisition of new sponsors is also on the rocks.
Now that the situation is so desperate that there is no turning back, it has fallen into a “chicken race” with hopes of “Trump’s re-election”.
In the “third-party objective view” that is unrelated to Twitter and the United States, which has nothing to do with Twitter and America, the current state of Twitter is catastrophic.
Elon Musk is known to both himself and others as an “enthusiastic and fanatical Trump supporter.”
Since Trump’s public relations method is “constantly sticking to Twitter,” Elon Musk hijacked Twitter in order to eliminate the elements that would be an obstacle for Trump.
Elon Musk doesn’t care about Twitter’s user base, He would rather kick out the anti-Trump people.
Elon Musk won’t mind because Trump has a lot of money and that money seems to support (subscriptions to) his supporters.
Elon Musk wants to use Twitter as a propaganda tool., so it’s inevitable.
I have to agree with Sajadi here. Well said.
The way we see and feel differs depending on where we stand, our circumstances, and our individuality, and no two are the same. It’s unique diversity.
Just one sentence from me:
If you stick your palm forward, from my point of view it is the “back of the hand” and from the other side it is the “palm” (Simply put, “right and left are reversed” in a facing relationship).
@owl That is so typical Progressives – Not only you deserve free speech, also Conservatives, Libertarians, Centrists apolitical people. That also includes Donald Trump or Tucker Carlson. Deal with it, if you can’t move away to some different platform.
Problem solved. It is always revealing to see the intolerance of the so-called tolerant. Hypocrites!
Also, moderate non-leftists deserve fair chances at elections. What happens now in the US is terrible to see and Democrats openly showing their totalitarian ideology. You know what happens when elections are fair and chances for all are equal? Look at some European countries or Italy or even Greece now – If things are fair and without manipulation – Conservatives can win too.
ehhm, maybe you dont know – but theres (for some ppl small) difference between free speech and plain lies. alwass fun to see what kind of ppl claim their free speech got violated. slurs, hate, lies – free speech ends where it hurts more important rights of others. And they always hold their double standards. If you havent lived under a rock, all those fake news and lies esp of those 2 have been causing havoc destroying wohle societies.
its not just coincidence that (extreme) conservatives are in median dumber and simple minded, tend to lie way more often, ignore details, go for simple solutions that solves one but creates 2 new problems, prefer believing over knowing, unflexible minds, .. oh the list is too long.
@Sajadi
Looks like you have your feelings hurt after owl rightfully criticised Elmo Musk. Anyway like with other folks supporting your views, enjoy living in your world. One advice though which you may like – touch some grass. Start from once a month. That’ll help you immensely.
+1, even though I strongly dislike Trump. There are too many so-called ‘progressives’ who want to control and limit free speech to whatever they happen to think is acceptable. And there is nothing in the least progressive about that.
Simply put, the fortunes of Twitter are inversely related to the fortunes of Trump (if Trump gains power, Twitter will thrive, otherwise Twitter will be catastrophically messed up), so is no prospect of soundness anymore (unless Trump is doomed).
News sources should NEVER link to a closed source that requires a login. Instead, link to a news article of record or to primary documents. Besides Twitter (now), links to closed Facebook groups and Scribd documents that require you to sign up to view the document are useless to most people. You might as well cite a classified document if the reader can’t actually see it.
Seems like Elon, couldn’t organise a bun fight in a bakery. 🍿
How dependent is Twitter on free software? Fuck Musk for his greedy attitude.
To me, not being able to access something without registration, is the same as if it doesn’t exist. So I guess Twitter is a thing of the past now. My world only accepts interoperability.
so you don’t use social media, email services, ecommerce, online banking, cloud storage, video and audio streaming.
Why the snark, emence?
Ecommerce: a lot of that can be done with guest checkout
Online banking: a luxury but many things can still be done by phone or in person
cloud storage: LOL as if that’s a necessity
video & audio streaming: since when has an account been needed for that?
Email: i’m no expert but isn’t it even possible to have your own domain and do most things on a desktop, without signing into a website?
Social media: as per the email thing, I’ve got a bunch of people I talk to only by email, there are also other alternatives such as chat rooms, p2p, and even IRC.
People can rebel against the norm, it’s not easy but it can be done.
I think you misinterpreted my previous comment. Doing some things on the internet requires an authentication system, for example, if it didn’t exist, everyone could read your emails, see your bank account information, see your purchase history, access your medical history, read your chats no matter what platform they are from, etc.
This is not about good company – bad company