Elon Musk set off early fireworks on Saturday after Twitter users were met with “rate limit exceeded” messages.
Musk told Twitter users that the company was temporarily limiting how many posts people could see per day to “address extreme levels of data scraping.”
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
The perplexing business move was met with ire and comedy on the social media platform that Musk has owned since last fall. Musk, too, seemed in on the joke, retweeting one of his own parody accounts.
The reason I set a “View Limit” is because we are all Twitter addicts and need to go outside.
I’m doing a good deed for the world here.
Also, that’s another view you just used.
— Elon Musk (Parody) (@ElonMuskAOC) July 1, 2023
Tech and ad industry veterans told the AP that the move is “remarkably bad” and may create new problems for Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, who just started her role in June.
Related: Who Is Linda Yaccarino? Everything to Know About Twitter’s New CEO
A few hours after the initial announcement, Musk upped the limit to 10,000 for verified users, 1,000 for unverified, and 500 for new unverified users.
Now to 10k, 1k & 0.5k
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023
Entrepreneur did not reach out to Twitter for comment because the one-time $44 billion company responds to all press requests with a poop emoji.
Related: Instagram Is Reportedly Rolling Out A Text-Based App to Compete With Twitter
