Twitter has restricted the content users may read on the platform daily, with the company’s owner claiming that the change was made to prevent “system manipulation.”
Does this most recent action indicate that the social networking platform will be shut down permanently? If so, where can users go from here?
To begin, the firm demanded that users check in before they could visit the site. Previously, even individuals who did not have a Twitter profile were able to view tweets. It subsequently imposed a limit on the great majority of users who did not pay for the site by limiting unverified accounts to viewing only 600 tweets per day, which was eventually increased to viewing 1,000 tweets per day.
Musk explained that these modifications were “temporary limits” in a tweet, adding that they were aimed to handle “extreme levels of data scraping” and “system manipulation.” It is not entirely obvious that this is what is taking place, but data scraping is the process through which automated programs, such as AI, gather all of the publicly available data from a website.
Some users feel that the move is an effort to entice users to subscribe to Twitter Blue, which grants users the ability to view 10,000 tweets each day. Others are of the opinion that Twitter may have been subject to capacity limits that were imposed on it by its vendors.
After individuals reached their limit over the weekend, they received alerts informing them that their “rate limit exceeded.” Some users were able to wait for a bit and then refresh their timelines, whilst others were unable to view any additional tweets for the remainder of the day.
In the beginning, you could get around the constraints by using a software called TweetDeck that was owned by Twitter. Since Monday, users of TweetDeck have been having trouble accessing their feeds on the platform.
Up until the most recent few days, Twitter had still been mostly functional, and a significant number of users had not been encouraged to abandon the platform.
However, as the platform makes it more difficult for users to access tweets, a potential successor to Twitter may emerge.
Bluesky, which was established in February and is run by Jack Dorsey, a former CEO of Twitter, is the most obvious alternative. Over the course of the weekend, the website was forced to prevent users from signing up for new accounts because so many people were leaving Twitter. As of Monday, we were once again accepting new sign-ups.
At this point, the only persons who can sign up are those who have received invitation codes from existing users, and Bluesky emphasizes that the service is still in the testing phase. It features a style and feel that is comparable to that of Twitter and also has an app, however users are unable to send direct messages or submit videos at this time.
In addition, Mastodon was promoted as a substitute for Twitter; nevertheless, despite the fact that it has established communities in the months following Musk’s takeover, Twitter is still the dominant social media platform.
According to recent sources, the text-based software known as Threads or “Project 92” is likely to be released imminently. Meta, the business that is responsible for Facebook and Instagram, looks to be prepared to step in to fill the void that would be left by Twitter’s departure.
The app’s screenshots hint that it would have a design that is quite similar to Twitter and that it will enable users to connect with people that they already follow on Instagram. That would remove one of the most significant obstacles that people have had when trying to migrate from Twitter, which is the process of discovering all of the accounts you used to follow.
