Elon Musk introduces ‘temporary’ solutions for Twitter problems.

Elon Musk Takes Action Against Data Scraping on Twitter

In a recent announcement, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, revealed new measures to combat platform manipulation and excessive data scraping. Musk tweeted, “To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits: Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day, Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day, New unverified accounts to 300/day.”

To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits:

– Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
– Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
– New unverified accounts to 300/day

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023

This news comes as Twitter tightens its restrictions on viewing tweets without a registered account. Users attempting to access content without logging in are redirected to a landing page where they can either create a new account or sign in to an existing one.

Musk addressed this issue after a tweet from Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Epic Games, who expressed frustration with the state of the internet. Musk responded, “Several hundred organizations (maybe more) were scraping Twitter data extremely aggressively, to the point where it was affecting the real user experience. What should we do to stop that? I’m open to ideas.”

Several hundred organizations (maybe more) were scraping Twitter data extremely aggressively, to the point where it was affecting the real user experience.

What should we do to stop that? I’m open to ideas.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 30, 2023

Sweeney suggested various measures to combat scraping, including infosec engineering and legal action against abusers. Musk replied, stating that he was already implementing those strategies. He said, “1. Scraping is already disallowed by T&C. 2. The scraping orgs dgaf & mask their IPs through proxy servers or through orgs that appear legit. For example, a recent massive scraping operation originating from Oracle IP addresses was just using their servers as a laundromat. 3. We absolutely will take legal action against those who stole our data & look forward to seeing them in court, which is (optimistically) 2 to 3 years from now.”

1. Scraping is already disallowed by T&C.

2. The scraping orgs dgaf & mask their IPs through proxy servers or through orgs that appear legit. For example, a recent massive scraping operation originating from Oracle IP addresses was just using their servers as a laundromat.

3.…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 30, 2023

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