In an unexpected move, Elon Musk, Twitter’s ex-CEO, has announced a new policy to prevent data scraping and other forms of system manipulation.
According to NBC’s reporting, in an effort to restore order and integrity to the network, Twitter will now set stringent limitations on the number of tweets users may see each day.
New Leadership and Unprecedented Measures
Musk just revealed that Linda Yaccarino, a former advertising sales executive at NBCUniversal, will be taking over as Twitter’s CEO, and now comes this news.
Many are interested in seeing how Yaccarino, with her wealth of media business expertise, can steer the platform into the future.
Addressing Data Scraping and Manipulation
Musk took to Twitter to announce the change and detail the short-term restrictions that would go into effect.
Verified accounts, which belong to prominent people or organizations, will have their daily post count capped at 6,000.
New unverified accounts will have a reduced daily limit of 300 posts compared to the previous 600.
These changes are an attempt to counter the growing problem of scraping and manipulation of the platform’s data.
Technical Hiccups and Previous Outages
In recent months, Twitter has clearly been experiencing technical challenges. In February, users were locked off of the site for 90 minutes after hitting their daily tweet limit, leading to much frustration and anger.
For a short time in March, users had trouble clicking on links and seeing photos, which was frustrating and annoying.
User Confusion and Trending Hashtags
Several customers were greeted with a mysterious “rate limit exceeded” notification only minutes before Musk’s announcement.
A hashtag, “#TwitterDown,” began trending in the United States due to the widespread misunderstanding generated by the notice.
Musk and Twitter’s new CEO have introduced new policies with the goal of making the platform safer for users and reducing the negative effects of data scraping and system manipulation.
Users will be interested to see how the social media behemoth develops under new management as the platform through a period of transition.