Likes to change the rules: Twitter boss Elon Musk limits the number of short messages that can be viewed. Picture: Reuters
Twitter’s new owner drastically restricts access to the platform, upsetting many users. The reasoning of the multi-billionaire raises some questions.
Elon Musk is once again causing a stir with drastic changes on the short message platform Twitter. His announcement over the weekend that access to the online platform would be severely restricted angered many users. According to him, for the time being they can only see a certain number of Twitter entries per day, with the limits for paying members being higher than for free users.
Before he announced these rules via Twitter, many users complained on Saturday that they had received error messages when accessing the platform that they had exceeded a limit. Twitter had already initiated another restriction on Friday: According to this, Twitter entries can only be viewed by registered users. Previously, tweets were also visible to users who were not dialed in.
Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, gave similar rationales for both decisions. He described them as steps in the fight against companies using Twitter data to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-related technologies. This includes, for example, the language model ChatGPT, which comes from the company Open AI. Online platforms like Twitter have an enormous wealth of data that can be very useful for the development of such technologies.
“Emergency Measure” to protect Regular Users
Musk said there are “several hundred companies” that are “extremely aggressively” using Twitter data for their own purposes, which is affecting the service for its regular users. Almost every company that deals with AI has siphoned off massive amounts of data, including small start-ups and some of the largest corporations in the world. The new Twitter owner described the restrictions as an “emergency measure” and as temporary.
As he has done since he’s owned Twitter, he caused confusion by announcing the new rules, repeatedly changing the limits on access to the service within hours. Initially, it was said that so-called “verified accounts” – i.e. users who pay for a Twitter subscription – could view 6,000 entries a day, for free users Musk set the limit to 600 entries.
He then revised himself upwards twice, now 10,000 entries should be visible to paying subscribers and 1000 to free users. New free users should only be able to see 500 entries a day. However, many questions remain unanswered. Musk didn’t say how long these supposedly temporary restrictions would last, nor did he reveal what would prompt him to repeal the new limits.
Criticism of Microsoft’s behavior
Musk has often complained that other tech companies use Twitter for free. In April, for example, he accused the software company Microsoft of having “illegally trained” technologies using Twitter data. “Time for a lawsuit,” he tweeted at the time. Microsoft has invested billions in the ChatGPT developer OpenAI involved and uses its technologies in an increasing number of its products. Musk would have other potential motives for denying companies access to Twitter. It was recently announced that he had registered a new company called X.AI, which deals with AI technologies.
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In any case, there are doubts about Musk’s official justification for the new restrictions. Yoel Roth, a former senior Twitter executive who left the company shortly after the sale to Musk, wrote on the online platform Bluesky that he thought it questionable that the Twitter data harvesting had affected the service so badly that the Company had no choice but to restrict access. Since Musk’s takeover, Twitter has seen turbulent times. The new owner has radically cut staff, most recently the company still had around 1,500 employees, before the sale there were around 7,500.
Musk fired the previous top management and initially made himself CEO, a few weeks ago he gave the post to Linda Yaccarino, who came from the entertainment group NBC Universal. One of the most notable changes to Twitter since the acquisition has to do with the blue ticks, which used to be given out for free as a form of identification to certain individuals, such as celebrities. Musk has made these hooks part of a paid subscription that also promises access to more Twitter entries after the innovations that have now been announced.
Source: FAZ