The new limit has already been applied on a temporary basis, and while Musk has cited "data scraping & system manipulation" to be the reasons for this new update, it is speculated that the move is an attempt to get more paying users on Twitter.
Elon Musk has announced a limit to view Tweets for unverified accounts.
Here are the limits that Musk has set for three categories of users on Twitter:
- Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
- Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
- New unverified accounts to 300/day
Musk announced the development with a Tweet, sharing little details. Unverified users had multiple questions on the restriction. For instance, what counts as reading? Is it a view count on Tweet, or if you scroll past it? Next is once you cross your limit, would you just be locked out of the app or the post would be blurred out like an NSFW post?
Also Read: Twitter Purge: Musk is winding down accounts that have been inactive
While system manipulation is a broad term Musk has cited, data scrapers on Twitter would still be able to continue their practices by either paying for subscription or restraining the number of accounts. The success rate of this experiment would highly depend on limiting the numbers, and several probabilities.
This update comes in after several changes to the platform that differentiate the experience for paying and non-paying users. Recently, the account security feature 2FA (two-factor authentication) announced that it will now only be a part of features offered by Twitter Blue, the paid version of the Twitter experience. The changes over the period of time seem to be aligned with the objective of garnering a substantial base of paid users.