Global Courant
When Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, he said he wanted to turn the blue bird app into a “digital city square” where different opinions could be discussed.
But one expert says Musk’s vision for the app is beginning to crumble after the tech billionaire recently announced temporary limits on the number of tweets users can view each day.
“This is extremely problematic given that this is how people communicate, this is how they get their information,” Ritesh Kotak, a Toronto-based technology and cybersecurity expert, told the CTV News Channel on Sunday.
“Instead of this being an open digital city square, it seems like the walls are closing in.”
WHAT CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE?
Musk announced the new restrictions in a tweet on Saturdaysaying that “extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation” were to blame for the temporary measure.
He originally said that verified Twitter accounts would be limited to reading 6,000 messages per day, unverified accounts would be limited to 600 messages per day, and new unverified accounts would be limited to 300 messages per day.
Within the space of a few hours, Musk announced changes to those limits twice. Ultimately, he gave verified accounts access to 10,000 tweets per day, unauthenticated accounts access to 1,000 tweets per day, and new unauthenticated accounts access to 500 tweets per day.
Kotak said he was shocked by the move.
“It is drastic. And it just came out of the blue,” he said.
Now to 10k, 1k & 0.5k
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023
Twitter also recently announced that users will need an account on the social media platform to view tweets. a move Musk called a “temporary emergency measure” on Friday.
It is unclear how long these measures will be in effect.
The crackdown caused more than 7,500 people to report problems using the social media service at one point on Saturday, based on complaints registered on Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages. The hashtag #TwitterDown was also briefly trending in some parts of the world.
More than 60 users reported possible problems with Twitter as of Sunday afternoon. according to Down detector, while 38 reports of possible issues with Tweetdeck were released. By Monday afternoon, those figures had fallen to 15 reports and four reports respectively.
CTVNews.ca reached out to Twitter’s media department for comment, only to receive a laughing poop emoji in response.
WHAT IS DATA SCRAPING?
Data scraping is the automated process of extracting large amounts of data from websites or online resources.
It will be unlocked soon. According to my earlier post, drastic and immediate action was needed due to EXTREME levels of data scraping.
Almost every company doing AI, from startups to some of the largest companies in the world, collected massive amounts of data.
It is rather…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023
Musk has been a vocal critic of organizations scraping Twitter’s data for research or to train artificial intelligence programs, including Microsoft and OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT. He destroyed such organizations on Friday.
“Almost every company doing AI, from startups to some of the largest companies in the world, collected massive amounts of data,” Musk said in a tweet.
“It’s kind of annoying to have to bring large numbers of servers online in an emergency just to facilitate the outrageous valuation of an AI startup.”
‘IT CAUSED PROBLEMS’, EXPERT SAYS: HOW RECENT CHANGES AFFECTED CANADIANS
The recent changes have received a lot of backlash from many users, some of whom say they plan to flock to platforms like Mastodon in an effort to boycott Twitter.
Restricting access to tweets limits people’s access to critical information, Kotak said, pointing to extreme weather events as a scenario where people can rely on Twitter to find out what’s happening in their area and how to respond effectively .
“It caused problems (on Saturday), especially considering we had extreme weather across the country… and a lot of people who do get their news from Twitter actually couldn’t see tweets because they were over their limit,” it said.
While it was considered controversial, so were Canadians first informed of some details of the mass shooting in Nova Scotia – the deadliest shooting in Canadian history — by the RCMP on Twitter in April 2020.
stop making Twitter pay to win
— trace (@tracedontmiss) July 1, 2023
Some users have also expressed dismay that Musk has started monetizing the platform by allowing those who pay a monthly fee to access more tweets as part of the company’s Twitter Blue subscription service.
Twitter Blue also gives users access to other features, such as a verified blue check mark badge, as well as the ability to edit and write longer tweets. It was introduced in December 2022.
“Stop making Twitter pay to win”, said one user in a tweet on Saturdaywhich has garnered over 52,000 likes and 2,017 retweets.
The tweet limits have also sparked outrage among media professionals as they rely heavily on social media platforms like Twitter to collect and distribute information in such cases.
“I think Twitter was probably the most open platform that an individual[could]go to… to just read certain tweets, see what people are saying… We didn’t have all these restrictions,” Kotak said.
“This has changed since Elon Musk took over.”
With files from The Associated Press
