Utah professor, residents react to new Twitter limits
Jul 3, 2023, 4:52 PM | Updated: 6:55 pm
SALT LAKE CITY — One of the largest social media platforms in the world is now restricting just how much content users can see each day.
On Saturday, Twitter owner Elon Musk announced viewing limits for account users. Verified Twitter accounts, which are now paid accounts, can read 6,000 tweets per day; unverified accounts can read up to 600 posts; and new unverified accounts can read up to 300. After the limit is reached, users will get a “rate limit exceeded” message.
To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits:
– Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
– Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
– New unverified accounts to 300/day— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023
“It doesn’t take a lot of scrolling to hit that limit,” said Dr. Alex Lawrence, associate professor at Weber State University and internet technology specialist.
The new limits are meant to address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation, according to the social media platform.
“Data scraping is where you’re going out onto the internet and you’re grabbing massive amounts of data from other people’s websites,” Lawrence said. “A.I. and bots have started to hit Twitter much more aggressively and much more frequently to grab tweets and profile information so they can use them for a variety of marketing purposes, which it’s not designed for.”
We have just launched a new, improved version of TweetDeck. All users can continue to access their saved searches & workflows via https://t.co/2WwL3hNVR2 by selecting “Try the new TweetDeck” in the bottom left menu.
Some notes on getting started and the future of the product…
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 3, 2023
Twitter users in Salt Lake City weighed in on the new limits Monday.
“I haven’t noticed anything, any changes so far, but it will be interesting to see what this change effects,” said Twitter user Daenen Wollesen.
“I don’t worry about it because the people I’m going to see I’ll see at some time,” said Twitter user Vern Kofford,
While the causal Twitter user may not notice the limited information available in their feeds, there is a bigger concern about public safety information, which was once wildly available to users.
“If I’ve got an unverified account and I can only read 600 tweets and I miss something — a weather alert or an emergency broadcast — then it definitely does cause those messages to go unseen,” Lawrence said. “But the argument is more of a business one. It’s a private company, owned by a private individual, and it’s not his obligation, arguably, to provide the tool free to anybody who wants to use it.”
The National Weather Service is one organization that has expressed concern about the new Twitter changes, and that it may be unable see reports of severe weather and damages.
Twitter announced on 3/29/23 that it will begin limiting automated tweets. Should this implementation occur, the automated watch/warning/advisory graphics shared on this account may not be posted. Have multiple ways to receive weather information and alerts.
— NWS Salt Lake City (@NWSSaltLakeCity) April 15, 2023
On Monday, the NWS issued this statement to KSL TV, advising all Twitter users to have multiple ways of viewing critical information:
“Twitter’s new post viewing limits serve as a reminder for people to have multiple ways of receiving weather warnings. Social media is considered to be supplemental to official sources of weather forecasts, watches and warnings, available at weather.gov.” — John Moore, NWS spokesperson
