Users of the microblogging platform Twitter now have a daily “reading limit” on the number of tweets they can view.
Elon Musk, the owner of the site, made the announcement on Saturday afternoon in an effort to stop what he described as “extreme levels” of data scraping on the platform.
It came after several hours of many users reporting that they could not refresh posts or see their timelines.
Verified accounts are only allowed to read 6,000 posts per day, while unverified accounts are only allowed to read 600 posts per day, according to Musk, who announced the new limit.
He added: “Temporary limits mean the issue should be resolved very very very soon. Meanwhile, all you great people can walk 10k steps per day to remain healthy and smart.”
It comes after Twitter announced that it will require users to have an account on the social media platform to view tweets in a move Musk called a “temporary emergency measure.”
The entrepreneur has said that hundreds of organisations were scraping Twitter data “extremely aggressively”, impacting user experience.
On Friday, he said that the social media platform was “getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users”.
Twitter has undergone a number of modifications under Musk’s management, including a redesign of the site’s verification process.
A blue checkmark on the website in the previous design denoted an account belonging to a well-known public person.
The tick is now only available to Twitter Blue subscribers, who pay $8 per month, under the new system.
Ada Peter
