The popular social media platform, Twitter, has stirred up a storm by unexpectedly limiting the volume of tweets that users can view daily. This unannounced shift has left many puzzled, but Twitter’s justification points towards tackling malevolent activities.
Twitter’s surprise move against ‘bad actors’
According to a Twitter Business blog post, this abrupt limitation on usage was primarily to identify and eradicate bots and other malicious actors jeopardizing the platform’s integrity. Twitter indicated that broadcasting these measures in advance could be problematic. Specifically, it could grant ill-intentioned users time to revise their strategies, thereby dodging detection.
Some users have met Twitter’s justification with skepticism, yet the company maintains its stance. Twitter strongly asserts that the purpose of the rate limit is to thwart the collection of public data by malicious entities. Moreover, the company emphasizes that this move aims to curb the potential manipulation of conversations on the platform. Twitter reassures that the rate limits currently impact a minor segment of its users and commits to releasing an update when the process is complete.
A silver lining for advertising?
Twitter’s move to announce this update through its business blog raised eyebrows. The company, however, stated that the rate limiting has had a minor impact on advertising. Detractors suggested that limiting daily tweet visibility could disrupt advertisers’ ability to connect with users. Such a disruption, they argue, could adversely affect Twitter’s earnings.
Rate limiting brought a cascade of problems to Twitter’s website and applications, including the much-relied-on app TweetDeck. In response, Twitter launched an “enhanced version of TweetDeck.” The plot thickens as Twitter plans to migrate all users to this latest version and, surprisingly, make the application exclusive to verified accounts. In effect, Twitter has introduced a paywall for TweetDeck for the overwhelming majority of users.
The future of Twitter
As this situation continues to unfold, it will be interesting to see how Twitter users and advertisers adapt to these new changes and what impact they will have on Twitter’s reputation and revenue.
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