In a surprising weekend move, Elon Musk imposed a daily read limit on Twitter, aimed at curbing data scraping. The consequence? Twitter users across the board are feeling the impact, with TweetDeck users bearing the brunt, experiencing issues such as failed notifications and non-loading columns.
The initial read limit dictated by Musk was 6,000 tweets for verified users and 600 tweets for the unverified per day. However, this threshold saw a subsequent increase to 10,000 and 1,000 tweets, respectively. Given TweetDeck's nature, which simultaneously displays numerous tweets across several columns, these reading restrictions appear to hit TweetDeck users hardest.
While users' home timelines seem unaffected, they report problems with other columns like notifications, mentions, and likes.
A paying user: This is what Tweetdeck looks like now. You remain a genius product innovator. pic.twitter.com/7TDnP0B39G
— Philipp Kloeckner (@pip_net) July 2, 2023
The last official word on TweetDeck came from Twitter in June 2022 when it discontinued the Mac app - predating Musk's takeover. At that point, Twitter was testing a new TweetDeck web app in selected locations. Under the new leadership, however, the future of TweetDeck remains shrouded in mystery, although rumors hint at it becoming a paid feature.
Twitter's recent move to restrict tweet viewing without login also signifies its intention to curb data scraping, potentially aimed at those aiming to train AI models. Musk defended this as a "temporary emergency measure" in response to Twitter being "data pillaged," impacting user experience. Yet, ironically, these measures seem to impair user experience themselves, with users, even the paying "verified" ones, hitting rate limits quickly. This raises questions about the balance between user experience and security measures on the platform.
