On July 1, billionaire Elon Musk - owner of Twitter - announced that the social network will temporarily limit the number of posts (tweets) that users can read each day, in a move to limit the use of data on the site by artificial intelligence (AI) companies.

Specifically, Twitter only allows verified accounts to read 6,000 posts/day, while unverified accounts (free accounts, which currently make up the majority of users) are only allowed to read 600 posts/day.

This number for new unverified accounts is 300 posts/day.

According to Mr. Musk, this decision is to address the excessive data extraction from the website that third-party platforms are doing.

He said Twitter will soon raise the limit for verified accounts to 8,000 posts per day, while the number for unverified accounts and new unverified accounts will be 800 posts per day and 400 posts per day, respectively. However, the billionaire did not reveal a specific time of application.

Much of the data extraction comes from businesses that use data to develop AI models that influence website traffic. To create AI that can respond like a human, many companies train their models using real-world conversation examples from social media.

According to Mr. Musk, hundreds of organizations are over-extracting Twitter data, affecting the actual user experience.

Twitter isn't the only social media platform that's had trouble with the rapid growth of AI.

In mid-June, Reddit raised prices for third-party developers using data and scraping conversations posted on the forum.

This is seen as a controversial move as many users access the site through a third-party platform, and reflects a change in policy, where social media data is often provided for free or at a low cost.

(Source: vietnamplus)