Elon Musk announced on Twitter that he is implementing restrictions on the number of tweets users can read, as thousands of Twitter users encountered difficulties accessing the platform on Saturday. In a tweet, Musk stated that verified accounts would be limited to reading 6,000 posts per day, while unverified accounts would only have access to 600 posts per day. New unverified users faced an even more stringent limit of 300 posts per day. Musk later updated these limits, indicating that they would soon increase to 8,000 posts for verified users, 800 for unverified users, and 400 for new unverified users. A few hours later, he further revised the limits to 10,000, 1,000, and 500 posts, respectively.
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
Musk clarified that these changes are temporary and were implemented to counteract excessive data scraping and system manipulation. This recent widespread outage marks another instance since Musk acquired Twitter late last year.
Numerous users attempting to access or post content on Twitter’s website or mobile app encountered error messages such as “Rate limit exceeded” or “Cannot retrieve tweets.” According to Downdetector, over 7,300 individuals reported issues with Twitter around 11 a.m. ET, but this number decreased to the 600s by Saturday night.
When CNBC requested a comment from Twitter regarding the situation, the company responded with its customary poop emoji. This outage on Saturday is not the first time Twitter has experienced technical difficulties in recent months. In February, users were unable to post on the site for approximately 90 minutes after receiving a message stating, “You are over the daily limit for sending Tweets.” In March, users faced temporary issues where they couldn’t click on links or load images.
Some of these outages coincided with reports of a data center closure and significant layoffs at Twitter, which Musk claimed were necessary for the company’s financial health.
