Twitter asserts that the lack of advance notice about rate limiting was necessary to prevent bad actors from altering their strategies. The company decided to implement the limit to tackle issues caused by bots and malicious users that were harming the platform. Although some doubted the company’s rationale for the move, Twitter clarified that the rate limit was aimed at preventing misuse of public data and manipulation of conversations on the platform. Twitter emphasized that the rate limits only affected a small percentage of users and assured an update when the efforts were completed.
Interestingly, Twitter’s business blog post received attention when it was revealed that rate limiting had a minimal impact on advertising. This led some to speculate that limiting the number of tweets users could read per day might hinder advertisers’ reach and potentially affect Twitter’s revenue.
The rate limiting measures also caused disruptions, affecting Twitter’s website, apps, and even TweetDeck, a popular app among power users. To address this, Twitter released an improved version of TweetDeck, but with a twist: the new app is exclusive to verified accounts, effectively creating a paywall for the majority of users.