‘For a mission like Twitter…’: CEO Linda Yaccarino's first reaction to tweet-reading limit

In a statement, Twitter said that the ‘temporary limit’ was set in to crack down on spam accounts.

Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino on Tuesday reacted for the first time to the company’s new restrictions on tweet reading. Former CEO Elon Musk announced on Saturday that users without the blue tick would now be able to view only 600 tweets daily. Those with verified accounts can read up to 6,000 posts daily, with the limit being just 300 for newly-unverified ones.

Ex-Twitter CEO Elon Musk, center, speaks with Linda Yaccarino,(AP)

Defending the move, Yaccarino said that Twitter’s mission required such changes to enhance its services. Calling the revamp ‘meaningful’, she retweeted a post from Twitter’s Business account.

She wrote, “When you have a mission like Twitter -- you need to make big moves to keep strengthening the platform. This work is meaningful and on-going. Here’s more insight on our work to ensure the authenticity of our user base.”

Yaccarino took charge as CEO of the microblogging site in early June.

In a statement, Twitter said that the ‘temporary limit’ was set in to crack down on spam accounts. “To ensure the authenticity of our user base we must take extreme measures to remove spam and bots from our platform. Any advance notice on these actions would have allowed bad actors to alter their behaviour to evade detection,” it added.

Read: TweetDeck down? Users complain Twitter's reading limit affects the valuable tool

Twitter asserted that the reading limit impacted only a tiny percentage of users and that advertising has been stable in the days following the widely-criticised move. “As it relates to our customers, effects on advertising have been minimal. a better place for everyone,” the statement read.

Musk had called the decision necessary to battle "extreme levels" of data scraping and system manipulation while netizens speculated that it has something to do with Twitter reportedly not paying several bills.

Read: Amid ‘RIP Twitter’ trend, Jack Dorsey reacts as Elon Musk limits tweet reading

In another update on Tuesday, the company said that users will need to get their account verified for using TweetDeck - a single dashboard which allows users to handle different accounts.

Meanwhile, Bluesky, a competitor started by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, saw a huge rush of new users on Saturday, forcing it to temporarily limit sign-ups.