Update: Thousands of Twitter users are reporting problems loading the app as Elon Musk set rate limits for unverified users.
On Saturday, Musk announced unverified users who declined to pay for Twitter blue were limited to reading just 600 tweets per day – including their own tweets. That meant some power users were exceeding their tweet limits in under 20 minutes.
Verified users who pay the $8 monthly fee for Twitter blue are limited to reading 6,000 tweets a day.
Twitter users are in an uproar and advertisers complained that users aren’t seeing their ads.
The rate limits sparked a mass exodus of Twitter users to other platforms such as Donald Trump’s Truth Social app and Bluesky by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
Hours later, Musk announced he would soon increase daily rate limits to 8,000 tweets for verified users and 800 tweets for unverified users.
The change comes a day after Musk forced all users to log in to read tweets.
Musk explained the forced login is only temporary to address “data scraping and system manipulation” by AI bots.
However, according to reports, Twitter has not paid Google Cloud’s $1 billion fee to handle Twitter’s massive traffic. The Google Cloud contract reportedly expired on Friday.
Coincidentally, Musk locked Twitter on Friday. All Twitter links now redirect to the login page.
The hard lockdown surprised registered users who worry that the login wall will affect their views and user engagement stats.
Locking Twitter’s gates is viewed by some as a desperate move to increase new registrations.
Twitter has seen an 18.7% decline in traffic since March 2023, according to web analysis site Similarweb.
Pew research found that most Twitter users took a break from the social networking site after Musk acquired the app last year.
Major advertisers fled Twitter after Musk became CEO. As a result, Twitter’s ad revenue crashed 59%.
Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, recently announced an aggressive strategy to win advertisers back.
Her plan includes implementing full page video ads, celebrity partnerships, and expanding the workforce, per Mint.com.
Yaccarino urged her staff to prepare for “hand-to-hand combat” in their battle to win back major advertisers.
