Why Is Elon Musk Implementing a ‘Rate Limit’ On Twitter?

• Twitter imposes temporary viewing limits due to data scraping and manipulation.
• Elon Musk increases post limits for verified and unverified accounts.

Twitter, the popular social media platform, has imposed temporary limits on the number of posts users can view per day due to what Elon Musk, Twitter executive chairman, called “extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation.” Users had been experiencing issues such as missing timelines and receiving “rate limit exceeded” messages, resulting in the hashtag #TwitterDown #TwitterFail trending. 

Initially, verified accounts were restricted to 6,000 posts per day, unverified accounts to 600, and new unverified accounts to 300. However, Elon Musk later announced an increase in the limits to 8,000, 800, and 400, respectively. Shortly after, he tweeted again, stating the new limits as 10,000, 1,000, and 500. 

Elon Musk justified these restrictions, saying they aim to encourage users to spend less time on the platform and engage with the real world. He emphasized that the changes are temporary measures to combat the aforementioned issues. Twitter users are hopeful that these adjustments will alleviate the problems and enhance their overall experience on the platform.