Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey has voiced his thoughts on the uproar caused by Elon Musk’s decision to impose “view limits” on tweets. The notorious free speech failure says that “running Twitter is hard.”
Breitbart News recently reported that Elon Musk announced limits on how many tweets users can read in a day, causing confusion and frustration among social media users in multiple countries. Now, Deadline reports that former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has commented on the situation.
Elon Musk with hands up (Chesnot / Getty)
“Running Twitter is hard. I don’t wish that stress upon anyone. I trust that the team is doing their best under the constraints they have, which are immense,” Dorsey stated in a tweet. He further acknowledged the ease of critiquing decisions from a distance, a position he admits to being in, but expressed confidence in the platform’s future, saying, “I know the goal is to see Twitter thrive. It will.”
And I do hope they consider building on truly censorship-resistant open protocols like bitcoin and nostr to help ease that burden. Good for all, and critical to preserve the open internet.
— jack (@jack) July 1, 2023
Dorsey also expressed hope that the Twitter team would consider building on open protocols like bitcoin and nostr. He believes that this could help ease the burden of managing the platform, saying, “And I do hope they consider building on truly censorship-resistant open protocols like bitcoin and nostr to help ease that burden. Good for all, and critical to preserve the open internet.”
The controversy began when Musk decided to set limits on the number of tweets users could read daily. According to Musk, these limits were put in place “to address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation.” The limits vary based on whether a user is verified and whether they pay a monthly subscription fee. Verified and subscribing users are allowed to read 6000 posts a day, while unverified users are limited to 600 posts a day, and new unverified users to 300 a day. Later, Musk revised these limits to 10k for verified users, 1k for unverified users, and 500 for new users.
The decision has not been without backlash. Many users have expressed their frustration with Musk’s decision, and some have even started exploring alternative social media platforms. One such platform is Bluesky Social, a new social networking service that aims to compete with Twitter. Interestingly, Dorsey is on the board for Bluesky Social, which is currently in beta and requires an invite code to sign up.
Read more at Deadline here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan