9 ms·

Funny how the effect of the rate limit has barely affected bots and scrapers at all but severely damaged the userbase of the site.

by naillo 3y ago

MicropenisMike 3y ago
It's true for a lot of cases. Adding almost any restriction only hurts casual users, and attackers are rarely casual users.
malermeister 3y ago
tinfoil hat time: what if that was the point all along? twitter was a vital space for organizing protests - think arab spring, occupy wall street. one of the richest guys in the world (who's also very anti-union, btw!) buys it up in a time where inequality is getting worse and worse and social fabrics are starting to tear and makes it unusable. no more space for organizing. one fewer threat to capital.
- klardotsh 3y ago
  Given the dude paid $44B for a site clearly worth significantly less than that, and then promptly ran it into the ground, your "tinfoil hat time" answer honestly seems like the only rational answer. It checks out on more levels than any of his actions have.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    Yes, it seems plausible. It was also funded in large part by the Saudis, American banks, and other wealthy individuals who are all strongly incentivized to hinder activist communication networks. Now everyone who used Twitter has to re-form their networks elsewhere. Mission accomplished. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/28/saudis-kingdom-holding-company-to-maintain-twitter-stake https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/28/saudis-kingdom-hol...
  - immibis 3y ago
    Why is this downvoted? It makes a lot of sense, and it's not some outlandish conspiracy theory (it's very inlandish) as we've seen rich people do similar things before, more than once, and dictators do it very frequently.
- paxys 3y ago
  He owns the site. If this is truly his intention then all he has to do is turn off the main switch. There's really no reason to give him the benefit of doubt and twist the narrative into "Musk is a genius and everything is going according to plan". The simpler theory is likely to be the correct one – he has never run a social network before and has no idea how to stop bleeding users and cash so is desperately throwing ideas at the wall hoping something sticks.
  - tedunangst 3y ago
    I don't believe the theory, but if you wanted to cut off protests, you'd want to leave the site up but severely degraded to delay migration away.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    > If this is truly his intention then all he has to do is turn off the main switch Putting on a secondary tinfoil hat to prevent stray signals from leaking in: the Simple Sabotage Field Manual suggests that you gum-up the works so to slow things down by a lot. You may not want to make the sabotage obvious, because it'd get fixed immediately (e.g. blow up a factory). Back to the topic: turning off the switch would result in an exodus to other platforms.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    I too don't believe Elon is that dumb. He could let the site just be. Especially after rate limits, it really smells something. You wouldn't rate limit a social media platform even if you bills are hard to pay, if you want the platform to be around.
- rtsil 3y ago
  He would be really stupid if that is his thinking, because as we just saw these users would just move to a competitor as long as there is one. Twitter doesn't have a monopoly on short conversation-based social media.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    A competitor that "isn't for news, politics or negativity" [0]. In other words, a place that won't let the same thing happen. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/7/23787334/instagram-threads-news-politics-adam-mosseri-meta-facebook https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/7/23787334/instagram-threads...
    - rtsil 3y ago
      > news, politics or negativity They said they won't boost these, not that these are forbidden.
ryantgtg 3y ago
Very anecdotally, bot activity on my accounts was increasing in the last month and then it completely stopped after that recent rate limiting stuff.
- paxys 3y ago
  I feel the same way. Don't know if it's because of the algorithm or something else but Twitter these days seems to be 80% bots shilling crypto and/or simping for Musk.
- immibis 3y ago
  I am seeing more spam notifications since the rate limit, plus, the spam notifications are 75% of my notifications because all the humans quit.
burgerrito 3y ago
I swear, the bots is only increasing ever since Elon bought the site. I've been getting more and more DM from spam accounts, somehow from Japan too (Whaaat?). Whatever Elmo is doing, it's not working

Funny how the effect of the rate limit has barely affected bots and scrapers at all but severely damaged the userbase of the site.

by naillo 3y ago

Funny how the effect of the rate limit has barely affected bots and scrapers at all but severely damaged the userbase of the site.

MicropenisMike 3y ago

It's true for a lot of cases. Adding almost any restriction only hurts casual users, and attackers are rarely casual users.

malermeister 3y ago

tinfoil hat time: what if that was the point all along? twitter was a vital space for organizing protests - think arab spring, occupy wall street. one of the richest guys in the world (who's also very anti-union, btw!) buys it up in a time where inequality is getting worse and worse and social fabrics are starting to tear and makes it unusable. no more space for organizing. one fewer threat to capital.

klardotsh 3y ago
Given the dude paid $44B for a site clearly worth significantly less than that, and then promptly ran it into the ground, your "tinfoil hat time" answer honestly seems like the only rational answer. It checks out on more levels than any of his actions have.
- coldpie 3y ago
  Yes, it seems plausible. It was also funded in large part by the Saudis, American banks, and other wealthy individuals who are all strongly incentivized to hinder activist communication networks. Now everyone who used Twitter has to re-form their networks elsewhere. Mission accomplished. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/28/saudis-kingdom-holding-company-to-maintain-twitter-stake https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/28/saudis-kingdom-hol...
- immibis 3y ago
  Why is this downvoted? It makes a lot of sense, and it's not some outlandish conspiracy theory (it's very inlandish) as we've seen rich people do similar things before, more than once, and dictators do it very frequently.
paxys 3y ago
He owns the site. If this is truly his intention then all he has to do is turn off the main switch. There's really no reason to give him the benefit of doubt and twist the narrative into "Musk is a genius and everything is going according to plan". The simpler theory is likely to be the correct one – he has never run a social network before and has no idea how to stop bleeding users and cash so is desperately throwing ideas at the wall hoping something sticks.
- tedunangst 3y ago
  I don't believe the theory, but if you wanted to cut off protests, you'd want to leave the site up but severely degraded to delay migration away.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  > If this is truly his intention then all he has to do is turn off the main switch Putting on a secondary tinfoil hat to prevent stray signals from leaking in: the Simple Sabotage Field Manual suggests that you gum-up the works so to slow things down by a lot. You may not want to make the sabotage obvious, because it'd get fixed immediately (e.g. blow up a factory). Back to the topic: turning off the switch would result in an exodus to other platforms.
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  I too don't believe Elon is that dumb. He could let the site just be. Especially after rate limits, it really smells something. You wouldn't rate limit a social media platform even if you bills are hard to pay, if you want the platform to be around.
rtsil 3y ago
He would be really stupid if that is his thinking, because as we just saw these users would just move to a competitor as long as there is one. Twitter doesn't have a monopoly on short conversation-based social media.
- malermeister 3y ago
  A competitor that "isn't for news, politics or negativity" [0]. In other words, a place that won't let the same thing happen. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/7/23787334/instagram-threads-news-politics-adam-mosseri-meta-facebook https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/7/23787334/instagram-threads...
  - rtsil 3y ago
    > news, politics or negativity They said they won't boost these, not that these are forbidden.

ryantgtg 3y ago

Very anecdotally, bot activity on my accounts was increasing in the last month and then it completely stopped after that recent rate limiting stuff.

paxys 3y ago
I feel the same way. Don't know if it's because of the algorithm or something else but Twitter these days seems to be 80% bots shilling crypto and/or simping for Musk.
immibis 3y ago
I am seeing more spam notifications since the rate limit, plus, the spam notifications are 75% of my notifications because all the humans quit.

burgerrito 3y ago

I swear, the bots is only increasing ever since Elon bought the site. I've been getting more and more DM from spam accounts, somehow from Japan too (Whaaat?). Whatever Elmo is doing, it's not working