Twitter imposes limits on readable tweets to beat 'scraping'

AppleInsider

The latest changes to the Elon Musk-owned Twitter is causing problems for users, with the micro-blogging service preventing unregistered users from viewing the site and limiting access, to fight off supposed data scrapers.

Elon Musk and the Twitter logo

On Friday, Twitter updated its web interface to prevent users from browsing posts without logging into the site with an account. At first, it was unclear if the issue was a technical problem or one introduced by the service itself.

In tweets responding to the problem, Elon Musk claims it was a scraping issue. Responding to one tweet, Musk calls it a "Temporary emergency measure," as Twitter was "getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users."

More detail was offered by Musk in response to Epic Games' Tim Sweeney, claiming that there were "several hundred organizations (maybe more)" who were "scraping Twitter data extremely aggressively, to the point where it was affecting the real user experience."

Musk doesn't go into detail as to what kind of scraping is occurring, but strong candidates include chatbot services like ChatGPT and others that have recently grown in popularity.

On Saturday, Musk made another pronouncement, informing his followers that due to the "extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation," some temporary limits were being put in place.

Verified accounts, including those willing to pay for Twitter Blue, received a limit of reading 6,000 posts per day. Unverified accounts get 600 post reads per day, while new unverified accounts have 300 posts per day.

The changes occur at a time when users discovered that they were rate-limited when accessing posts, in what may be a linked issue.

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hmlongco

Twitter grows less useful day by day.

Then again, there's an assumption in there somewhere.....

mikethemartian

Is there any way to automatically filter out Twitter postings when searching for keywords using Google and other search engines whatever browser you are using?

macxpress

More like let's figure out a way to screw users over more and more. Ole Elon trying desperately to get his $44 Billion back lol. 

crazyexcalibur

BS. They’re testing to make people pay. 

baconstang

I'm not on Twitter, yet their cookies always show up on my browser.  Let me block them in exchange.

coolfactor

I have no doubt that opportunistic companies are scraping data for their own needs.

appleinsideruser

mikethemartian said:

Is there any way to automatically filter out Twitter postings when searching for keywords using Google and other search engines whatever browser you are using?

Try tweets -twitter.com for example

chasm

There’s little reason for scraping companies to be looking at Twitter any more than they ever have, unless government agencies are increasing their hunt for domestic terrorists — since Twitter has turned into a forum for extremists. I’m not buying his explanation, and the posters here have put forth several more-credible explanations.

If a data-scraping company actually wanted to really mine Twitter for data, they would HAPPILY pay the $8/month for permission to do that. It would be the cheapest part of such an operation. Yeah, no, try again Elon.

Hey, anyone remember that CEO he allegedly hired to allegedly run this place? What happened to her? Anyone heard from her at all?

Maybe she’s actually running the other Musk companies, since he obviously doesn’t have time and they are languishing.

slow n easy

I don’t care. I don’t read anywhere close to 600 tweets a day. I use to follow Musk, but I unfollowed him due to his stupid ass crazy posts. I do follow all of his companies though. You might not believe it, but he is building millions of humanoid robots. At first he will be using them for his Tesla factories. After 30 years, Boston Dynamics has 2 robots for sale (Spot and Stretch). Tesla only started developing their robot last year, and it should be mass production ready is just a few years. The reason why they can build millions is because while the Boston Dynamics robots cost a minimum $100,000, the Tesla Bot should cost under $10,000 with far more capability.

bonobob

mikethemartian said:

Is there any way to automatically filter out Twitter postings when searching for keywords using Google and other search engines whatever browser you are using?

Add -site:twitter.com to your search terms.

Anilu_777

Apparently he didn’t pay Google Cloud for hosting. Maybe related who knows

chutzpah

Hahaha, so much for the town hall. He’s turning it into a private members club of fellow gullible fools.

chutzpah

slow n easy said:

I don’t care. I don’t read anywhere close to 600 tweets a day. I use to follow Musk, but I unfollowed him due to his stupid ass crazy posts. I do follow all of his companies though. You might not believe it, but he is building millions of humanoid robots. At first he will be using them for his Tesla factories. After 30 years, Boston Dynamics has 2 robots for sale (Spot and Stretch). Tesla only started developing their robot last year, and it should be mass production ready is just a few years. The reason why they can build millions is because while the Boston Dynamics robots cost a minimum $100,000, the Tesla Bot should cost under $10,000 with far more capability.

If you already think Musk says “stupid ass crazy” stuff, why on earth would you believe such obvious nonsense?

red oak

JP234 said:

Data scraping my lily white ass. It's all about the bad optics they're getting when the racist, homophobic, zenophobic and right wing extremist tweets get picked up by other users and re-tweeted to news media.

Truth hurts an autistic sociopath with no filter.

I think you need a mental health break 

eriamjh

Can’t statistically Analyze hate tweets if access is limited.  

Just sayin’…

Chock_Mossley

slow n easy said:

I don’t care. I don’t read anywhere close to 600 tweets a day. I use to follow Musk, but I unfollowed him due to his stupid ass crazy posts. I do follow all of his companies though. You might not believe it, but he is building millions of humanoid robots. At first he will be using them for his Tesla factories. After 30 years, Boston Dynamics has 2 robots for sale (Spot and Stretch). Tesla only started developing their robot last year, and it should be mass production ready is just a few years. The reason why they can build millions is because while the Boston Dynamics robots cost a minimum $100,000, the Tesla Bot should cost under $10,000 with far more capability.

Oh, it comes up faster than you realize. You’ll get on the site and see a couple of tweets and when the new tweets notification pops up to refresh your feed, you’re hit with rate limit. 

2 reasons why could have Elongated Muskrat made this excuse for. The first reason floating around is Twitter didn’t pay a $1 Billion to Google that it owed to host some of Twitter’s content and it came up due on June 30th.  The other reason I’m hearing is Musk accidentally broke Twitter trying to block people who don’t have accounts to read tweets, according to computer experts, Twitter is firing 10 requests a second to fetch content that never arrives because of his new policy, so he’s trying to hide the fact that he caused a self inflicted DDoS

dewme

Does this mean that Elon Musk and Tim Sweeney are teaming up? 

Whoa ... now they're only one stooge short of being the not-so-super group they were always destined to become. 

The door is still open. So many contenders to choose from - but only one will be chosen.

Who will it be?

Skeptical

God I can’t stand that guy. When does he leave to Mars?

williamlondon

Chock_Mossley said:

slow n easy said:

I don’t care. I don’t read anywhere close to 600 tweets a day. I use to follow Musk, but I unfollowed him due to his stupid ass crazy posts. I do follow all of his companies though. You might not believe it, but he is building millions of humanoid robots. At first he will be using them for his Tesla factories. After 30 years, Boston Dynamics has 2 robots for sale (Spot and Stretch). Tesla only started developing their robot last year, and it should be mass production ready is just a few years. The reason why they can build millions is because while the Boston Dynamics robots cost a minimum $100,000, the Tesla Bot should cost under $10,000 with far more capability.

Oh, it comes up faster than you realize. You’ll get on the site and see a couple of tweets and when the new tweets notification pops up to refresh your feed, you’re hit with rate limit. 

2 reasons why could have Elongated Muskrat made this excuse for. The first reason floating around is Twitter didn’t pay a $1 Billion to Google that it owed to host some of Twitter’s content and it came up due on June 30th.  The other reason I’m hearing is Musk accidentally broke Twitter trying to block people who don’t have accounts to read tweets, according to computer experts, Twitter is firing 10 requests a second to fetch content that never arrives because of his new policy, so he’s trying to hide the fact that he caused a self inflicted DDoS

Wonder what the size of that viewing audience is/was (either unlogged-in real users, or lurkers, of which I counted myself), either way it can't bode well for Twitter's reach if that audience no longer has access to any of the discussions on Twitter. It's almost as if he's trying to kill the site with every bone-headed move.

ericthehalfbee

Meh. Got permanently suspended from Twitter (was expecting it but it took longer than I thought).

Created a second account (a right-wing Trump fan) to go along with my main “left wing” account.

Started posting identical, but opposite posts on each account. For example, suggest using the 2nd Amendment to get rid of traitors like AOC or MTG. My “left” account received numerous temporary suspensions leading up to my permanent ban while my “right” account didn’t even get a single warning. I fully expected this based on the shithole Twitter has become, but didn’t expect it to be so obvious.

Eventually Twitter will be another Truth Social, a failing platform that only preaches to the choir of fuckwit GOP and Trump fanatics.