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Twitter’s recent usage restrictions were put in place to “detect and eliminate bots and other bad actors,” the company said Tuesday, adding that only a “small percentage” of users are currently affected.
“To ensure the authenticity of our user base, we must take extreme measures to remove spam and bots from our platform,” Twitter said. in a blog post. “Any advance notice of these actions would allow bad actors to change their behavior to avoid detection.”
The company said the actions are designed to prevent accounts from mining public user data to build artificial intelligence models and manipulate platform usage.
Twitter owner Elon Musk announced the restrictions on Saturday, saying users would only be allowed to read a certain number of posts per day due to “extreme levels of data exhaustion” and “system manipulation”.
Twitter billed the restrictions as temporary, and they were ordered based on a user’s verification status on the platform. The update came as many Twitter users encountered error messages when trying to access the platform.
“The restrictions are currently affecting a small percentage of people using the platform and we will provide an update when the work is complete. As far as our customers are concerned, the effects on advertising are minimal,” Twitter said on Tuesday.