In case you missed it, here is what has been happening, Twitter introduced limits to the number of tweets users can see daily. No more doom-scrolling on Twitter for hours on end. It’s meant to be a temporary measure though.
– Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
– Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
– New unverified accounts to 300/day
Why? Social media sites have been expertly crafted to keep us on them for as long as possible. So, why would Twitter introduce parental controls for everyone and limit how much we can use our beloved site?
Elon Musk says it is to “address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation.” But what does that even mean?
Data scraping is the process of importing information from a website into a spreadsheet or local file saved on a computer. So, on Twitter, some organisations are pulling every tweet/user account information to store in an unknown database somewhere else.
This is not unique to Twitter. Various organisations have been known to scrape data on all social media sites. The social media sites themselves scrape data to improve their sites.
Positive effects of data scraping on social media sites
- Increased user engagement: Data scraping can be used to identify trends and patterns in user behaviour, which can help social media sites to improve their products and services. For example, data scraping can be used to identify which posts are most popular, which features are most used, and which demographics are most active on the site. This information can then be used to make the site more engaging and user-friendly.
- Improved advertising targeting: Data scraping can also be used to improve the targeting of advertising on social media sites. By analyzing user data, social media sites can better understand the interests and demographics of their users. This information can then be used to show users ads that are more relevant to them.
- Enhanced research: Data scraping can also be used to conduct research on social media. For example, researchers can use data scraping to track the spread of misinformation, identify emerging social movements, or study the impact of social media on elections.
Negative effects of data scraping on social media sites
- Privacy concerns: One of the biggest concerns about data scraping is that it can violate user privacy. When data scrapers collect data from social media sites, they often do so without the knowledge or consent of the users. This can lead to users’ personal information being exposed to third parties.
- Bot abuse: Data scraping can also be used to create bots that automate tasks on social media sites. These bots can be used to spam users, spread misinformation, or manipulate the platform’s algorithms. This can have a negative impact on the overall user experience of social media sites.
- Content theft: Data scrapers can also be used to steal content from social media sites. This content can then be used for malicious purposes, such as spreading misinformation or creating fake news articles.
- Identity reveals: It could also be used to figure out the identity of anonymous people or to punish people in their country for what they tweet.
Some of the useful responses we are getting from generative AI like ChatGPT come from them scraping Twitter and other social media sites. This scraping can exert a toll on social media sites.
When Twitter pays for its data centres, it is charged for data going in and data going out. So, extensive scraping will hurt Twitter financially.
That means we can be sure that whatever scraping led to Twitter introducing limits was massive. So, this could be a game changer for AI companies, especially if other social media sites copy from the same book (which is highly unlikely.)
Of these AI companies and other data scrapers, Musk said,
It is rather galling to have to bring large numbers of servers online on an emergency basis just to facilitate some AI startup’s outrageous valuation
Some have criticised Twitter saying they should have been able to deal with this without resorting to the limits. It shows that their developers are either not good enough or too small in number to keep the ship afloat.
Some posts on Blind show that that might be the case. Some Twitter devs were seen asking for help on how to deal with these data scraping problems. Or so it looked.
Twitter will pay for this move and they know it. This leads me to conclude that they really were under a massive data scraping attack of some sort for them to resort to these drastic measures.
The limits will affect the users whose experience Twitter says it wants to safeguard. It might reduce usage forever, however temporarily the view limits are in place. Which will negatively impact Twitter’s ad business.
Some Twitter alternatives have already seen some good uptake in the wake of the limits being imposed. Bluesky, Mastodon and Truth Social all saw an abnormal spike in new sign-ups, with Bluesky having to pause new sign-ups to cope with demand.
This is the landscape into which Meta will be introducing their Twitter rival, Threads. Can Zuckerberg ride the wave of negative press that Twitter is experiencing and have a better-than-expected launch day? It’s possible.
We saw this when InnBucks launched in Zimbabwe. EcoCash was hobbling under the pressure of RBZ bullying and InnBucks pounced on that to become a household name in the remittance space.
So, I will be checking out Threads tomorrow, when it is supposed to launch.
I don’t think any of these alternatives will overtake Twitter any time soon but time will reveal all.
PS: I’m writing this coverage from a neutral perspective. I do not have strong feelings about Elon Musk, one way or the other. There are not many people who feel this way, as most people either loathe him or worship him. I don’t get it but it is what it is.
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