Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, recently announced temporary tweet-viewing rate limits on Twitter, which restrict the number of posts un-verified users can see. Musk stated that extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation were the reasons behind the limited functionality. However, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety raised doubts about this explanation.
According to Musk’s tweets, the rate limits varied throughout the day, with verified accounts for paid users initially limited to reading 6,000 posts per day. Existing unverified accounts were limited to 600 posts per day, while new unverified accounts were only allowed to view 300 posts per day. These limits resulted in a notification appearing when users reached their viewing limits, stating either Something went wrong. Try reloading, or Sorry, you are rate limited. Please wait a few moments then try again.
The constantly changing rate limits raised skepticism among Twitter users about the reasoning behind the restrictions, especially when they would be removed on the same day. Yoel Roth, who worked on user trust and site integrity teams at Twitter for over seven years, expressed doubt about the claim that data scraping caused such significant performance problems for Twitter.
Roth stated that scraping was a known issue in accessing Twitter data and was generally accepted. He believed that the sudden implementation of rate limits and requiring users to log in seemed suspicious. Both Roth and Musk did not respond to further comments on the matter.
The presence of these limits has created unease among Twitter users, leading some to consider migrating to rival platforms like Bluesky social, which experienced such a surge in user migration that it had to stop new account creation. This incident raises concerns about the user-centric approach of dealing with parasitic AI and data access.
In addition to the rate limits, Twitter has been navigating negotiations with Google for cloud storage services. Musk had previously refused to make payments towards Twitter’s existing $1 billion contract with the search giant, but later reports suggest that Twitter has resumed making payments on the contract under new leadership. Negotiations regarding the future of this partnership are still ongoing.
Twitter users have speculated that the restricted functionality resulted from Twitter’s failure to pay for Google cloud services. However, further verification is needed to confirm the specific cause behind the restrictions.
Roth also claimed that Saturday’s incident was not the first time Twitter broke due to issues with the rate limiter. He emphasized that the limiter was a highly secured internal tool, and making adjustments to rate limits could potentially break the platform.
As the situation unfolds, users are eager to see how Twitter resolves these functionality limitations and the outcomes of their negotiations with Google.
