Twitter users’ attention has been increasingly focused on Elon Musk since he bought the social networking service in October. Now, it appears they can see nothing but Musk on Twitter.
On Monday, several Twitter users noticed that their “For You” feeds on the website were full of tweets and replies from the tech billionaire, some several days old, save for the occasional promoted tweet. Users reported their feeds being packed with Musk’s recent tweets, including accounts that don’t follow him.
It wasn’t clear why this is happening, and Twitter representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The oddity comes less than a week after people using the social network reported several widespread issues on Feb. 8 affecting their experience on the platform, including losing access to direct messages, getting error messages saying they were “over the daily limit for sending tweets” and needing to schedule tweets in order to post them.
That same day, Twitter announced it planned to start charging $100 a month for a “basic tier” to access Twitter’s application programming interface, which developers and researchers use to analyze public tweets. On Feb. 10, Twitter also rolled out the ability to tweet 4,000 characters, rather than the typical 280 characters, for US Twitter Blue subscribers.
Musk’s move to charge for features that are typically free has irked people who use the platform, especially because the changes are made rapidly with little notice. Twitter fumbled the rollout of an updated verification system last year that allowed users to get a coveted blue checkmark if they pay a subscription fee.
Read More
Steven Musil