In what’s being described as an effort to reduce spam in Direct Messages (DM), Twitter has announced that it will be implementing daily limits on the number of DMs unverified accounts can send. The decision follows Twitter's recent change to its DM settings, which now allow users to only receive messages from verified users, although this can be manually adjusted.
This is one of a series of major changes the social media giant has made since Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, acquired the company for $44 billion in October 2022. Other changes include limitations on the number of tweets users can view each day to prevent unauthorized data scraping and the introduction of new features such as calls and encrypted messaging. Musk's tenure, however, has not been without controversy. Mass layoffs, high turnover in the top ranks, and several lawsuits have marked his time in control.
However, Twitter's latest move has received a mixed reaction. Critics argue that it is a sales funnel designed to drive more users to become verified and to subscribe to the platform's subscription service, Twitter Blue, rather than a genuine effort to combat spam. Some have suggested that limiting DMs for unverified accounts will simply result in verified accounts having the ability to spam in DMs.
Further, there's skepticism about Twitter's intentions. Some users see this change as an attempt by Twitter to push people to pay for verification, citing operational costs rather than fighting spam. In response to the new limit, both verified and unverified users have voiced their opinions, many of them negative.
Despite Musk's promise to eliminate spambots on Twitter, spam activity has reportedly remained consistent since his takeover. Amid this, Twitter admitted that it had a problem with spammer DMs, leading to the recent adjustments to the DM settings.
The specifics of the daily limits have yet to be specified by Twitter, and many unverified users are already receiving messages stating they've hit their maximum DM limit for the day, suggesting they sign up for Twitter Blue to continue messaging. Twitter's decision-making has frustrated even its Twitter Blue members, as seen from replies to the announcement tweet. As of now, Twitter has yet to provide further clarification on the "maximum limit" for unverified users.
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