Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, has implemented tweet limits in order to prevent unauthorised scraping of valuable data from the platform. Users are now required to log in to view tweets and profiles, a departure from the previous practice of allowing open access. These restrictions have resulted in some users being locked out of Twitter for the day after scrolling through a significant number of tweets. 

Musk stated that these measures are temporary and were put in place due to the excessive data pillaging that was negatively impacting the service for regular users. 

He also expressed concerns about the misuse of Twitter data for training AI systems like ChatGPT. Initially, unverified accounts were limited to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts had a limit of 6,000. However, Musk later increased the thresholds to 800 posts for unverified accounts and 8,000 for verified accounts, before settling on 1,000 and 10,000 tweets respectively, following backlash.

Elon Musk, as part of his efforts to increase Twitter revenue, earlier introduced an $8-per-month subscription service earlier this year. This subscription service includes the said higher threshold for verified accounts, allowing them to access more tweets. 

Since Musk took over Twitter and implemented cost-cutting measures, such as significant layoffs, the company’s revenue has declined sharply. Additionally, changes made to the platform, which have allowed more contentious and offensive content, have led to a reduction in advertising spending on Twitter, as it offends a larger portion of the audience. These factors have contributed to the challenges faced by the social media platform.