Elon Musk will charge you for reading tweets

Twitter changes once again as Elon Musk announces temporary reading limits for unverified, verified, and new unverified users. Consequently, you must get a paid Twitter Blue subscription for verification and the highest reading limit. Chief Twit explains these new rules address “extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation.”

Twitter is one of the most popular social networks, where businesses, governments, and celebrities share information in real-time. These changes will significantly impact how various figures and organizations communicate with the public. Hence, you should see how these guidelines could affect your online experience.

This article will discuss Elon Musk’s newest plans for his social media platform. Later, I will explain other Twitter changes, such as the new CEO and her long-term objectives.

What are Elon Musk’s latest changes to Twitter?

Now to 10k, 1k & 0.5k

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023

Elon Musk made a name for himself for his unpredictable and sometimes baffling business moves. On July 2, 2023, Elon Musk stayed consistent by suddenly dropping huge changes to his social media platform:

• Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
• Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
• New unverified accounts to 300/day

Three hours later, he revised these limits to 10,000 for verified, 1,000 for unverified, and 500 for new unverified accounts. Coincidentally, Musk’s announcement follows the end of Twitter’s contract with Google Cloud.

The agreement allows the social media platform to host its services on Google’s remote servers until June 30. According to Engadget, Twitter refused to pay the search engine company ahead of that date.

Elon Musk says these temporary limits will curb data scraping & system manipulation. According to cybersecurity firm G Data, the former involves transferring data from one system to another. Companies often perform data scraping to learn more about social media users.

The information lets them properly target their marketing campaigns to gain more customers and sales. On the other hand, malicious individuals and groups scrape data to find victims.

They can use the information to scam unsuspecting social media users or steal their identities. The new rules may limit the amount of Twitter data hackers may gather.

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However, these may significantly harm the website’s online traffic. The Verge explains these rules will stop people without accounts from viewing tweets.

The new rules may discourage people who don’t want a Twitter account from using the website further. Also, they would reduce the time registered users spend on the platform.

After all, you may exhaust these tweet limits quickly if you’re an avid user. Eventually, the rules may limit people viewing ads, driving away advertisers.

What other Twitter changes should we expect?

Photo Credit: deadline.com

Elon Musk appointed Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s new CEO on May 12, 2023. He will oversee the company’s product and engineering division while she will face the following challenges:

1. Yaccarino must rebuild the company’s reputation to attract advertisers again. However, she must handle Elon Musk’s unpredictable actions.
2. The former NBC exec must balance content moderation with free speech. It must offer users freedom while ensuring they will not post content that will repel advertisers.
3. Also, she must find ways for the company to profit. In March 2023, Elon Musk said the company is less than half of what he paid to acquire it.
4. Moreover, she must revitalize employee morale after Elon Musk’s actions. In October 2022, he told BBC he downsized from 8,000 workers to 1,500. Also, he ceased remote work and required employees to accept “long hours at high intensity.”
5. Yaccarino is also racing against the clock as competitors see Twitter’s decline as an opportunity to grow.

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Conclusion

Elon Musk announced Twitter would limit the number of tweets people can read. Unverified users may read 1,000 daily, and the new unverified may view 500.

Verified users get 10,000, potentially incentivizing people to pay $8.00 for Twitter Blue. These were Musk’s latest social media changes at the time of writing.

As mentioned above, Musk may announce further changes without warning. Fortunately, you can learn about them and other trends as soon as possible with Inquirer Tech.