Elon Musk did what Elon Musk does best this weekend: rock the boat at Twitter and drive everyone a little mad.
This time, it was the announcement of a so-called temporary rate-limit which restricts users from viewing tweets once they surpass a certain threshold.
Initially, Musk stated this would range between 300 and 600 tweets viewed for unverified accounts (dependent on account age) and range up to 6,000 for verified accounts. He later revised those numbers to a range between 400 and 800 tweets viewed for unverified accounts and up to 8,000 for verified accounts.
Musk reasoned this counter-measure was necessary to “address extreme levels of data scraping (and) system manipulation,” though the truth is it’s yet another demonstration of Musk’s fundamental misunderstanding of the Twitter product and how the platform is used.
At some point in the early 2010s, Twitter became the necessary companion for live events: the ultimate second screen for entertainment, sports, and news. It has served sports fans, awards show viewers, people wrapped up in great television show finales, news hounds, and the like.
If you’re like many Twitter second screen users engaged in one of those live events for an hour (or three), there’s no doubt you’re consuming thousands of tweets during that time period.
That’s what makes a limit in the hundreds (or mid-thousands) so laughable.
Musk’s new limit won’t get you out of the third inning.
And today, after reading the announcement, it didn’t take long for this to happen:
As Musk himself quipped, “Rate limited due to reading all the posts about rate limits.” It would be funny if it weren’t so sad watching Musk continue the destruction of a once-great digital platform.
Musk’s move isn’t limited to rate limits.
Another way this new interest in stopping “scraping” has harmed users is the move to turn off tweet previews in iMessage (and similar messaging platforms) over the last few days.
For years, my personal group chats shared a great number of funny tweets and sports highlight tweets per day. Many of us would tap through to view the video or rich media, we’d like or re-tweet the tweet, and generally engage with the platform. A great experience.
A few days ago, Twitter turned off the rich preview so instead of previewing the contents of the tweet, the links simply showed up as links. Fewer people tapped through, and there was generally less engagement. It didn’t take long for friends to slow down (or stop) sending Twitter links in our group chats.
If Musk believes this measure will improve top-line revenue, he’s sadly mistaken.
For one, this will not lead to a meaningful number of new Twitter Blue subscribers who aim for a higher limit.
The rate-limit will not improve engagement or the number of minutes spent on the platform, which is a key performance indicator for platforms like Twitter.
And importantly, this clearly handicaps Linda Yaccarino in her effort to breathe life into Twitter’s struggling advertising business. The rate-limit means fewer views, meaning fewer eyeballs, meaning fewer advertising impressions to sell.
Elon Musk, business genius, has tragically misread the room.
The good news is I believe Musk when he says this rate-limit will be temporary - the sad news is it will end when people stop posting content worth ”scraping,” which is right about… now.