Twitter has addressed recent changes to the platform that for some users impacted their ability to view tweets.
Twitter said on Tuesday the moves were in an effort to “ensure the authenticity of our user base.” According to reports, the social-media platform limited views for unverified accounts to 600 tweets and also required an account to view any Twitter content, among other changes.
“We must take extreme measures to remove spam and bots from our platform,” Twitter said in a statement. “That’s why we temporarily limited usage so we could detect and eliminate bots and other bad actors that are harming the platform. Any advance notice on these actions would have allowed bad actors to alter their behavior to evade detection.”
Some users saw “rate limited exceeded” on their feed when they reached the view limit. That followed the inability to view tweets at all without creating or logging into an account.
“Currently, the restrictions affect a small percentage of people using the platform, and we will provide an update when the work is complete,” Twitter’s statement said. “As it relates to our customers, effects on advertising have been minimal. While this work will never be done, we’re all deeply committed to making Twitter a better place for everyone. At times, even for a brief moment, you must slow down to speed up. We appreciate your patience.”
New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino linked to the memorandum, saying “you need to make big moves to keep strengthening the platform,” while a Twitter Business account similarly promoted the statement.
“Over the past few days, we’ve taken action to keep making Twitter a great place for everyone. And we want you to know why,” the Twitter Business account said.
