Twitter Outage Leaves Users Frustrated: Elon Musk Implements Temporary Limits

Thousands of Twitter users across multiple countries experienced difficulty accessing the social media site on Saturday. 

This sudden outage left users frustrated and unable to view their feeds or retrieve tweets.

Twitter Faces Outage Issues

The problem began around 8 am EST, as reported by DownDetector, and quickly escalated throughout the morning. By noon EST, more than 7,400 outage reports flooded the website. 

Twitter users, including CNN journalists, highlighted the issue, stating that their feeds weren't loading and that they encountered an error message displaying, "Sorry, you are rate limited. 

Please wait a few moments, then try again." Other users reported similar errors indicating an inability to retrieve tweets.

Elon Musk Intervenes

Responding to the growing number of reports, Twitter's billionaire owner, Elon Musk, took to the platform to address the situation. 

Musk acknowledged the outage and explained that temporary limits had been imposed to combat excessive data scraping and system manipulation. 

According to his tweet, verified accounts were restricted to reading 6,000 posts per day, while unverified accounts were limited to 600 posts. 

New unverified accounts faced an even lower limit of 300 posts per day.

Changes to Twitter Policies

In an effort to enhance revenue growth, Musk introduced a blue verification check mark exclusively for users subscribed to Twitter Blue, the platform's subscription service. 

This move incentivizes users to sign up for the premium service.

Shortly after, Musk tweeted that he planned to increase the limits for all account types. 

Verified users would soon be able to read up to 8,000 posts per day, while unverified accounts would have an allowance of 800 posts. 

New unverified accounts would see an increase to 400 posts daily.

User Frustration and Trending Topics

The connection problems faced by Twitter users sparked frustration and disappointment. 

Several trending topics emerged in the US, including "Wtf Twitter" and "Thanks Elon." 

Many users expressed their dissatisfaction with the ongoing issues.

It is worth noting that Twitter recently implemented a change, restricting access to its platform for non-logged-in users. 

However, it remained unclear whether this alteration was an intentional policy update or a glitch. 

The majority of the reported problems on Saturday occurred on the website (44%), with 39% of users reporting issues with the app.

This recent Twitter outage resembles the extensive service disruptions experienced in March, shortly after Elon Musk assumed control of the platform. 

During that incident, over 8,000 users reported disruptions, making it one of the largest outages since Musk's tenure began.