Twitter users who read an excessive number of tweets may eventually run out of something to read. You can thank Elon Musk for it.
The Twitter owner said last Saturday that rate constraints, or limitations on the number of tweets you can read each day, will be temporarily imposed for users. Musk used the practice of data scraping and system manipulation, in which bots and outside entities take large amounts of Twitter data for their own use, to justify the new plan.
However, as Musk continued altering limits, confusion quickly arose. He said in his initial tweet on Saturday that verified users would only be able to read 6,000 posts per day, unverified accounts 600 posts per day, and new unverified accounts 300 posts per day. Verified accounts pay the $8 monthly or $84 annually for a Twitter Blue subscription, whilst unverified accounts use Twitter for free.
Musk amended the figures later that day when he tweeted that verified users will be able to see 8,000 tweets per day, unverified accounts 800, and new unverified accounts 400. There's still more, though. The restrictions would be 10,000 per day for verified users, 1,000 per day for unverified users, and 500 per day for new unconfirmed users, according to the Twitter CEO in a third tweet that same day.
Several Twitter users also began asking questions, such as what counts as a new unverified account, how to keep track of how many tweets we've viewed, and how long these temporary restrictions will last.
One person said, "Elon, if I close my eyes and skip past some, will they still count towards my 6,000?" Another person inquired, "Can we have a Ticker that shows how many we have viewed?"
Musk had already expressed his concern over data scraping before the new limits were revealed. In a post on Friday, he claimed that hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses had been actively mining Twitter data to the point that it was impairing user experience. He indicated he was open to suggestions when I asked what Twitter might do to stop that.
With regard to data scraping, Musk's most recent complaints have been on AI firms like OpenAI that collect a sizable amount of information from websites like Twitter to train their chatbots.
He stated in an additional tweet on Friday that "almost every company doing AI, from startups to some of the biggest corporations on Earth, was scraping vast amounts of data. It is rather galling to have to bring large numbers of servers online on an emergency basis just to facilitate some AI startup's outrageous valuation."
