Elon Musk sets temporary user limitations on Twitter, making it even less usable

Getting notifications of "rate limit exceeded?" This is why

By Kelly McClure

Nights & Weekends Editor

Published July 1, 2023 2:17PM (EDT)

Elon Musk (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)
Elon Musk (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

If you've attempted to scroll through Twitter on Saturday, only to be met with the notification, "rate limit exceeded," there's a reason, but it's not a very good one.

Elon Musk, executive chair and CTO, chose a holiday weekend to enforce new daily limitations for users in response to "extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation," further impeding the site's functionality.

For as long as he chooses to make it so, verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts a day, unverified accounts get 600 posts a day and unverified accounts new to the site get the scraps at a limit of 300 posts a day.

Many users have been complaining, but Musk doesn't seem to care.

In NBC's coverage of the limitations, they state that, "Twitter responded to CNBC's request for comment with its customary poop emoji."


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In response to Twitter user @MrBeast saying, "Brb, gonna see how long it takes me to look at 6k posts," a very convincing Musk parody account got back to him saying it would take less than an hour and nine minutes. 

I'd gather more responses to Musk's news, but my limit has been exceeded. 


By Kelly McClure

Kelly McClure is Salon's Nights and Weekends Editor covering daily news, politics and culture. Her work has also appeared in Vulture, Vanity Fair, Vice and many other outlets that don't start with the letter V. She is the author of one sad book called "Something Is Always Happening Somewhere." Follow her on Bluesky: @WolfieVibes

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