Twitter Users' Tweet Viewing Restrictions: The Impact, Challenges, and Alternatives

Elon Musk's Twitter has temporarily limited the amount of tweets that users may view every day, causing some controversy and perhaps undermining the social network's efforts to lure advertisers.

The limit was enforced to "address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation," and is the latest modification made by Twitter, which Musk purchased last year for $44 billion (approximately Rs. 3,61,000 crore).

What does the current adjustment signify, and what are Twitter's alternatives?

How will the changes affect users?

Users cannot access tweets unless they log in to the platform. Verified accounts may now view 6,000 posts per day, while unverified accounts can read 600 posts and new unverified accounts can read 300 posts per day. Following that, customers will receive a notification stating, "rate limit exceeded."

Musk has stated that the cap would "soon" be increased to 10,000 for verified users, 1,000 for unconfirmed users, and 500 for new unverified users.

He has been working to make Twitter's revamped verified service more appealing. Musk made Twitter verified - unique badges formerly awarded to famous users - a paid membership service and offered tiers such as grey, blue, and golden badges.

Why did Musk set the Limit?

Musk stated that the constraints will aid in combating the scraping of massive quantities of data from Twitter by practically everyone, from AI businesses and startups to tech behemoths.

"It's rather galling to have to bring large numbers of servers online on an emergency basis just to facilitate some AI startup's outrageous valuation," he tweeted.

The technology underpinning generative AI tools like ChatGPT is educated on vast quantities of data from the internet, which aids in the creation of everything from poetry to images.

What are people saying?

Several Twitter users expressed their displeasure, with the hashtags "#TwitterDown" and "RIP Twitter" rising in recent days.

The restrictions have a particularly negative impact on accounts owned by news organisations, journalists, and monitoring services, who rely on examining thousands of tweets every day.

The National Weather Service stated that it may be unable to view tweeted reports of severe weather and accompanying damage and advised customers to call its office lines instead.

What are your options?

The primary alternatives are Twitter-like services such as Bluesky and Mastodon. Soon after Musk announced the limitations, they witnessed an increase in users and activity.

Bluesky, a beta service founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, reported "record high traffic" on Saturday and said it was temporarily halting new sign-ups.

Mastodon's active user base increased by 110,000 on that day, according to its inventor and CEO Eugen Rochko.