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Elon Musk said Saturday that Twitter users can only read a certain number of messages per day due to “extreme levels of data scraping” and “system manipulation” on the platform.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX said the limits are temporary, but verified accounts can read 6,000 messages per day, unauthenticated accounts can read 600 messages per day, and new unauthenticated accounts will be limited to reading 300 messages per day.
Musk did not say when the restrictions will be lifted.
Musk’s tweet comes as thousands of users reported problems when they tried to access Twitter on Saturday, the latest widespread outage since he took over the social media site late last year.
Many users who tried to access or post content to the Twitter website or mobile app received the error message ‘Rate limit exceeded’ or ‘Failed to retrieve tweets’. As of 11 a.m. ET, more than 7,300 people reported problems with Twitter on the website Down detector.
Twitter responded to CNBC’s request for comment with the usual poop emoji. It’s not immediately clear if the site’s outage is related to Twitter’s new restricted reading policy.
The social media site also began restricting access to content available to users without an account on Friday. Previously, Twitter allowed people to view public profiles and tweets even if they weren’t logged in, but they are now immediately presented with a login window.
Musk said in a tweet On Friday, that “drastic and immediate action” was needed due to “EXTREME” levels of data scraping. He added that the restrictions will be “unlocked soon”, but content remained restricted as of Saturday afternoon.
Saturday’s outage isn’t the first time Twitter has had technical problems in recent months. In February, users were unable to post to the site for about 90 minutes after receiving a message that read, “You have exceeded the daily tweet sending limit.” In March, users were temporarily unable to click links or load images.
Other outages coincided with reports of data center closures and mass layoffs at Twitter, which Musk claimed were necessary for the company’s financial health.
It is not yet clear when Saturday’s outage will be resolved.
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to show that Elon Musk is no longer CEO of Twitter. He is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.
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