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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Technology
Dave Snelling & Alahna Kindred

Twitter changes as Elon Musk announces new restrictions to ALL accounts

Elon Musk has announced new restrictions for Twitter users after thousands noticed their personal feeds were not refreshing.

Many logging on were met with a message that read "Rate limit exceeded".

The Twitter boss said that temporary limits have been introduced on how many tweets people can read.

Mr Musk said that unverified accounts can read up to 600 posts a day, while verified accounts can read up to 6,000.

Furthermore, newly unverified accounts are limited to 300 posts per day

RIP Twitter and #Twitterdown began trending on the social media site this afternoon as thousands started reporting problems around midday.

Tesla founder Elon Musk completed a purchase of Twitter for $43 billion in 2022 (Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Mr Musk, who is also the head of Tesla and SpaceX, has not said how long the temporary limits will last..

In a tweet, he explained: "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."

Many users can on longer see new tweets (AFP via Getty Images)

It's the latest change to the social media platform after Mr Musk introduced fees for blue ticks in April.

Those who wanted to continue to have an iconic blue tick would need to fork out up to £11 per month for a Twitter Blue account.

This premium service not only features that tick but users also get other functionality including being able to edit tweets and post longer messages.

Those signing up will also see fewer adverts and can format their tweets with things such as bold and italicised text.

The radical and somewhat unpopular move has been part of Mr Musk's plan to boost revenue from subscriptions.

High-profile Twitter users including royals, celebrities and sports stars lost their 'legacy' blue ticks after the social media site began to remove the marks that verify their identity.

Prince William, Kate Middleton, Pope Francis and Donald Trump were among those who had lost the symbol.

Even some large organisations such as the Labour Party and the official Conservative Party Twitter pages do not have any kind of symbol.

The billionaire took over the social media site in October 2022 for £35billion.

He has cut the firm's workforce from 8,000 people to just 1,500 and is now hoping that the focus on subscriptions will bring in added revenue.

Musk's announcement got a mixed response as some fans supported the move but most users are against the new Twitter Blue as it will make it harder to tell which accounts are legitimate.

Twitter has always used a verification process to prevent people from impersonating celebrities, companies, and other public figures online. This blue checkmark identified the account as the official one for that particular person or brand, be it Adele or Aldi - you knew they were real.

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