© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The Twitter logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, US, June 1, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDiarmid/File Image
(Reuters) – Twitter CEO Linda Iaccarino tweeted on Tuesday in defense of a temporary cap announced on July 1 on the number of tweets users can read in a day, and the company said the announcement has leveled off in the days since the move sparked barbs. users and marketing professionals.
Yaccarino wrote in her tweet: “When you have a mission like Twitter – you need to take big steps to continue to enhance the platform.” It was its first public comment on the limits announced Saturday by owner Elon Musk, who said the move was intended to discourage “extreme levels” of data scraping and system manipulation.
In the days following Musk’s announcement, Twitter users posted screenshots showing that they were unable to see any tweets, including on the advertised companies’ pages, after the limit was reached. Marketing professionals said that could undermine Yaccarino’s efforts to attract advertisers.
Twitter said only a small percentage of people using the platform were affected by the limits.
“To ensure the health of our user base, we must take aggressive measures to remove spam and bots from our platform,” the company said in a blog post on Tuesday.
The limit took effect shortly after Twitter began requiring users to log into an account on the social media platform to view tweets.
Facebook (NASDAQ: Meta Platforms) said it plans to launch a microblogging app called Thread, a offering that is a direct challenge to Twitter that has come under fire since Musk bought the company for $44 billion in 2022.
Asked by email why the CEO did not comment on the move until three days after it was announced, Twitter did not comment but sent Reuters an emoji, the company’s standard response to media inquiries.
