Tweet reading limits: 'Elon Musk needs to find a balance', say experts

The recent announcement by Elon Musk to set curbs on the number of tweets one can view has had experts concerned. They believe  this may curtail civil rights and  impact during disaster management scenarios.

Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, said in a tweet that there will be temporary limits on the number of tweets one can read daily. The announcement was made to avoid extreme level of data scraping and system manipulation.

“The recent announcement on temporary limits on Twitter usage raises concerns about the potential collateral damage to civil rights and business revenue. The Internet serves as the modern public square, where users rely on social media platforms to access news and information. We may see a scenario where critical advisories from weather or disaster management authorities are inaccessible due to rate limits being exceeded,” said Shruti Shreya, Programme Manager, The Dialogue, a tech policy think-tank.

Shreya added that while addressing concerns about data scraping is essential, it is crucial to strike a balance that preserves civil rights, supports businesses, and maintains the integrity of the internet as a platform for free expression. “It is necessary to explore alternative measures that mitigate data scraping without impeding users' access to information or compromising the revenue streams of businesses,” she said.

Musk in his tweet explained that the step was a “temporary emergency measure to ward off people scraping the site for tweet data.”

Verified accounts can read 8000 posts per day, whereas unverified accounts can read 800 posts and newly verified accounts can see only 400 posts per day. This was further increased in the day.

While the limits on viewing posts per day received huge flak from twitterati’s.

Founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey said in a tweet: “Running Twitter is hard. I don’t wish that stress upon anyone. I trust that the team is doing their best under the constraints they have, which are immense. It’s easy to critique the decisions from afar…which I’m guilty of…but I know the goal is to see Twitter thrive. It will.”

He added: “And I do hope they consider building on truly censorship-resistant open protocols like bitcoin and nostr to help ease that burden. Good for all, and critical to preserve the open internet.”

Meanwhile, the curb on Twitter has got people moving away to other platforms, such as Bluesky. According to international media reports such as The Verge and The Washington Post, Bluesky will be halting sign-ups temporarily as they have received record high traffic.

Recently, ChatGPT's success has made several industry players look up and notice how data has been taken from the internet to build systems that can potentially impact human efficiency.

 This April, Musk along with a group of AI experts and industry players had called for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful that OpenAI’s newly launched GPT4 in an open letter, as reported by Reuters.