Twitter recently implemented temporary measures to address "privacy concerns" and combat "data scraping" on its platform. These measures initially restricted access to tweets for logged-out users. However, after a short period, itt has quietly begun restoring access to tweets for logged-out users while maintaining certain restrictions.
Some users have reported being able to view tweets without logging into their accounts, although some limitations remain. While user profiles are accessible, the associated tweet feeds are not visible to those not logged in. Also, there have been reports of tweet previews in iMessage working correctly for some users.
In addition to restricting the visibility of tweets, Twitter also introduced limits on the number of tweets users can read daily. This move was designed to identify and eliminate bots and other bad actors harming the platform.
The Twitter post started by saying:
To ensure the authenticity of our user base, we must take extreme measures to remove spam and bots from our platform. That's why we temporarily limited usage so we could detect and eliminate bots and other bad actors that are harming the platform. Any advance notice of these actions would have allowed bad actors to alter their behaviour to evade detection.
By imposing these limits, Twitter aimed to curb data scraping activities used to train AI models. The company emphasized that these rate limits "only affected a small percentage of users" at the implementation time.
On the other hand, Meta's Twitter-rival app, Threads, is now publicly accessible from the web version. Reverse engineer and leaker Alessandro Paluzzi has tweeted the Threads handles of Mark Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri, and some creators with early access to the platform.
The web version of Threads currently offers a minimal interface with prompts to download the unreleased app, for instance, when trying to access the followers list. Also, you need the app to perform basic functions such as liking, sharing, reposting, or commenting on a post.
Source: Engadget
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