Twitter implements rate limits for users to combat data scraping

There are changes afoot at Twitter as the Elon Musk owned social media platform has begun implementing changes to how people can view tweets, as well as rate limiting users.

The first change to occur to Twitter was the requirement to be logged in to view tweets. Users trying to view a tweet while not logged in will receive a prompt to sign up for an account or log into an existing account. 

The changes were announced over the weekend by Musk, on his Twitter account in which he blames the change on data scraping, specifically calling out ‘Almost every company doing AI, from startups to some of the biggest corporations on Earth, was scraping vast amounts of data’. 

To combat the scraping Musk has now also announced a new rate limiting policy for Twitter. The policy will see new unverified accounts limited to viewing 300 tweets a day, with unverified existing Twitter accounts able to view up to 600 tweets a day, while users subscribed to the paid Twitter Blue service can view up to 6000 posts  a day.

According to a follow up tweet, Musk revised the limit to ‘8000 for verified, 800 for unverified & 400 for new unverified’, before again changing it to ‘10k, 1k & 0.5k’.

This rate limiting has had an interesting side-effect for users of Twitter, as well as their power user tool, Tweetdeck. The rate limiting has seen Tweetdeck grind to a halt for most users with columns simply not populating with data or pass on notifications.  

While using the platform has now become more difficult, especially if you don’t have an account, or are using a new one, Twitter itself is also trying to save a buck – most recently by not paying their contractors.

 According to Reuters, Australian project management firm, Facilitate Corp, has filed a lawsuit against Twitter Inc over alleged non-payment for work performed in Twitter offices across four countries.

The work performed, totals around $1 million AUD, for work at Twitters London and Dublin (£203,000 pounds), Singapore (S$546,600) and Australian (A$61,300) offices. 

It’s not the first time Twitter hasn’t paid their bills, with the company accused of skipping payments to a PR company as well as on rent on their San Francisco office, and even London offices among others. Twitter was also apparently trying to back out of paying their Google Cloud Services bill according to a report last month.