Elon Musk was criticized earlier this month after announcing that Twitter would limit the number of tweets that users could view in a certain span. However, this Thursday, Musk explained the reasons that led him to make the decision. Musk indicated on the platform that the measure was taken because there were several attempts to steal Twitter users' data.
"Several entities tried to scrape every tweet ever made in a short period of time. That is why we had to put rate limits in place," Musk wrote.
Several entities tried to scrape every tweet ever made in a short period of time. That is why we had to put rate limits in place.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2023
A high volume of data extraction
The details about the company's policy came at the same time that a lawsuit was announced against four Texas companies that were allegedly involved in the attempted mining of the social network's users. The lawsuit, which was shared on social media, claimed that there were a large number of requests to extract data.
"The volume of these requests far exceeded what any single individual could send to a server in a given period and clearly indicated that these automated requests were aimed at scraping data from Twitter," the document says.
Elon Musk Dallas Lawsuit_Voz Media by VozMedia on Scribd
Twitter insisted that users have no control over how mining companies use their personal information. "These requests have severely burdened X Corp.’s servers. and degraded the user experience for millions of X Corp.’s customers. Data scraping companies profit off the innovation of companies like X Corp. while harming X Corp. and compromising user data," the report added.
The limits announced by Elon Musk
Despite the lawsuit and Musk's explanation, the entrepreneur did not indicate whether the restrictions on the flow of tweets will remain in place. The limit established is different according to the type of account held by the user. Verified accounts are limited to reading only 8,000 tweets per day, while unverified accounts are only able to access 600, and the limitation for new unverified accounts is 400 per day.
