Elon Musk now limits the number Twitter posts you can read

Elon Musk is temporarily limiting the number of tweets people can read.

Musk, who is the CTO and owner of Twitter, said on Saturday, 1 July, that the move was to address "extreme levels of data scrapping and system manipulation".

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted that verified accounts would be able to read 10,000 tweets a day and unverified accounts would be able to read 1,000 tweets a day. Newly created unverified accounts will be limited to 500 tweets a day.

Musk initially announced stricter limits, but he changed it within hours.

He did not mention when the restriction would be lifted.

The announcement came after users reported they were met with error messages that read "Cannot retrieve tweets".

Thousands said they were unable to access the social media site, according to website Downdetector, which tracks internet disruptions.

Twitter began restricting content available to users without an account on Friday, 30 June, with Musk saying that "drastic and immediate action was necessary due to extreme levels of data scraping", referring to a process where data or content is extracted from one site, often without permission, to be displayed on another.

Twitter previously allowed people to view content without having signed in.

The site has also suffered technical difficulties in recent months.

Musk shakes up Twitter

Musk bought Twitter last year in October for $44 billion (€40.4 billion) after months of legal wrangling over the company.

But in the months following the takeover, Musk—then CEO of the company—faced criticism over management of the site, as a lot more of offensive content began appearing on the website and advertising revenue declined.

He then introduced Twitter Blue, a paid subscription service that verifies people with a blue checkmark.

The blue tick previously used to indicate Twitter-verified authentic accounts of influential people.

But the symbol, since becoming a paid service instead of proactive manual verification by Twitter, has declined in status.