Jack Dorsey Supports Limiting Tweet-Viewing Speed, Defends Decision Despite Criticism
On Tuesday, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino took to Twitter to defend the temporary limit on the number of tweets users can read in a day, which was announced on July 1. Despite facing backlash from users and marketing professionals, the company stated that advertising has remained steady in the days following the implementation of this measure.
“When you have a mission like Twitter, you have to make big moves to continue to strengthen the platform,” Yaccarino tweeted.
It was his first public comment on the restrictions announced by owner Elon Musk on Saturday, a step he said was meant to prevent “extreme” data scraping and system manipulation.
When you have a mission like Twitter — you need to make big moves to keep strengthening the platform. This work is meaningful and on-going. Here’s more insight on our work to ensure the authenticity of our user base. 👇 https://t.co/5FzBa3636Z— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) July 4, 2023
In the days following Musk’s announcement, Twitter users posted screenshots showing that they were unable to see any tweets, including on the pages of corporate advertisers, after reaching the limit.
And marketing professionals said that could undermine Yaccarino’s efforts to attract advertisers.
According to Twitter, the restrictions have only affected a small part of the people using the platform.
“To ensure the authenticity of our user base, we must take extreme measures to remove spam and bots from our platform,” the company said in a blog post published on Tuesday.
The restriction came into effect shortly after Twitter began requiring users to log into an account on the social media platform to view tweets.
Facebook parent Meta Platforms announced plans to launch a microblogging app called Threads, a direct challenge to Twitter, which has been heavily criticized since Musk bought the company for $44 billion in 2022.
Asked in an email why the CEO did not comment on the change until three days after it was announced, Twitter did not comment but sent Reuters a poop emoji, the company’s standard response to media inquiries.
