Twitter no longer lets users browse tweets, user profiles, and comment threads on the web without logging in, redirecting Twitter URLs to the sign in page

The Verge 2023-07-02 Jess Weatherbed

Context & Ripple Effects

Twitter had previously expanded logged-out viewing, including full mobile conversation access, making the new sign-in redirects a sharp reversal in how public posts could be reached on the web.

The restriction also followed a homepage change for logged-out visitors, and related coverage shows Twitter later restored access to individual tweets while keeping profiles gated. That sequence makes the episode a test of how much of the service remains publicly reachable versus account-only.

First-order effects

People arriving through shared Twitter URLs can no longer view tweets, profiles, or reply threads on the web without signing in; Twitter turns those visits into login prompts.
Publishers, creators, and other sites linking to Twitter lose a frictionless path for readers who do not have or do not use an account.

Second-order effects

Links to Twitter become less reliable as a public reference or distribution endpoint, encouraging linkers to provide screenshots, copied text, or alternative destinations alongside them.
The gate raises the relative value of logged-in audience reach for Twitter while reducing the utility of its public web surface for referral-driven users.

Third-order effects

If access controls become a recurring tool, the platform’s nominally public posts may function less like an open web layer and more like account-gated inventory—a shift toward reversing earlier logged-out access.
Repeated changes and partial reversals could make external publishers and users treat Twitter links as unstable endpoints, accelerating substitution toward archives, embeds, or other social channels.

The trend: This is one instance of large social platforms converting formerly public distribution surfaces into logged-in, platform-controlled access points.

Discussion

ResearchBuzz ResearchBuzz on mastodon
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@alpaye.bsky.social Alpay on bluesky
Well it is not very useful for logged in users either.
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
@TimSweeneyEpic Several hundred organizations (maybe more) were scraping Twitter data extremely aggressively, to the point where it was affecting the real user experience. What should we do to stop that? I'm open to ideas.
@timsweeneyepic Tim Sweeney on x
The internet feels increasingly broken. News sites are paywalled or account walled, Reddit is nag walled, Google search spams ads and SEO to the point of uselessness, and now Twitter is account walled. Web browsing feels horrible now.
@titterdaily @titterdaily on x
NEWS: Twitter's web version no longer allows users to browse without logging in. All urls redirect to the signup page. This is believed to be a measure to make it harder for scrapers to take Twitter's data, like ChatGPT's web browsing plugin has been doing. [image]
@jsrailton John Scott-Railton on x
NEW: you can no longer view Twitter profiles via web without login. Friction increases for disinformation research. [image]
@fck_ur_lies @fck_ur_lies on x
Rate Limit exceeded being the new error means that he's going to attempt to throttle people who don't pay him $8.00 a month to tweet. This is where it's heading. PAY UP or get DROWNED OUT. 2/2 https://techcrunch.com/...
@vicorib Viktor on x
This is so so so dumb. Anyone who's ever embedded a tweet on a blog, news site, research journals where a reader ain't logged on twitter will automatically show a blank page now. Sometimes I ask if Elon thinks before doing anything cos it looks like he doesn't 🧐 https://twitter.c…
@legacykillahd Michael on x
Missed this but yet another NOT GREAT change. No idea how less & less traffic is going to keep this site alive. This place can't be a walled garden if it wants to thrive... Twitter's worth has to be a fraction of what it once was. Severely mismanaged. https://twitter.com/...
@naniyule Nani Yule on x
Explains todays outage atleast in some part. Walled gardens around social platforms. https://twitter.com/...
@jackal27 Jordan Starkweather on x
If this is intentional, it's the worst decision yet. The only reason this site is so relevant is because the media and content made here can be easily spread (or even embedded) to the rest of the internet. https://twitter.com/...
@rsms Rasmus Andersson on x
The experience of web browsing has been in a steady decline over the past 10 years. In addition to most websites being 90% ads and cookie banners, many now only work in the latest version of Chrome, “the new MSIE”, or latest Safari (like Figma, which I can't access.) https://twit…
@jangles Neville Hobson on x
This may well be temporary as Musk says, but that requires a leap of faith and trust. Meanwhile, ensure you have an effective escape plan, just in case https://twitter.com/...
@jaytholen Jay Tholen on x
people no longer seeing their peers posting tweets on discord/forums/whatever is gonna make this site seem way less relevant v quickly. one of the few ways that new users find the place. https://twitter.com/...
@lizardengland Liz England on x
On the plus side maybe tabloidy gamer sites will stop linking to developer tweets like they are news. https://twitter.com/...
@stephen_kent89 Stephen Kent on x
when a breach eventually occurs, involving very sensitive information which the companies never wanted to collect....guess who will swoop in to take more control? The same govt that forced them to hold such information. better solution is to be a hands-on parent/guardian.
@speitsch Sebastian Peitsch on x
Noticed this yesterday This means you can't get around a block via the website without logging into a sock poppet account https://twitter.com/...
@yuris Yuri Sagalov on x
From a global town square to a gated community 😕 https://twitter.com/...
@zoeschiffer Zoë Schiffer on x
Twitter is blocking logged out users from browsing tweets in an effort to stop data scrapers. It's happening on web & about to expand to mobile. Interesting bc Musk's first project after taking over was redirecting the Twitter homepage to Explore rather than the sign up screen. h…
@triketora Tracy Chou on x
if only there were an api so people wouldn't have to scrape, if only https://twitter.com/...
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
At every turn Musk does basically the exact opposite of the things that made TikTok a success. Fascinating to watch [image]
@ben8128 Ben Eidelson on x
Next we will have Twitter Circles to further limit sharing. https://twitter.com/...
@wbm312 Whitney Merrill on x
Well this might be the thing that organically kills my twitter use. If I can't share tweets with folks, makes it a lot harder to engage in the same way. They'll see a small bump in signups - but the long term damage will come to bite them. https://twitter.com/...
@mgsiegler M.G. Siegler on x
Just amazing. Every link blog that links to tweets now just link to a dumb interstitial (unless you happen to be logged in to Twitter on that particular browser — which, if you're using, say, an RSS reader, you're not. Or coming from elsewhere, you're not). Stupid. Stupid. Stupid…
@peter @peter on x
Congratulations, @Twitter. You've played yourself. Every embedded tweet on a blog, news site or other experience where a reader isn't explicitly logged into Twitter shows a blank page now. So incredibly dumb. https://twitter.com/...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
@TimSweeneyEpic Lmaooo
@timsweeneyepic Tim Sweeney on x
@elonmusk Thwart scraping patterns with infosec engineering, forbid bad forms of scraping in terms of service, add a volume based liquidated damages clause, prominently litigate against large scale commercial abuse.
@nash076 @nash076 on x
Yay less eyeballs on ads this is the best idea https://www.theverge.com/...
@dalmaer Dion Almaer on x
Time To Next Bozo Move keeps getting shorter! https://twitter.com/...
@adamscochran Adam Cochran on x
Scrapers going to scrape. But nuking embeds will just send traffic and vitality lower at a much bigger impact than scraping. https://twitter.com/...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
@TimSweeneyEpic 1. Scraping is already disallowed by T&C. 2. The scraping orgs dgaf & mask their IPs through proxy servers or through orgs that appear legit. For example, a recent massive scraping operation originating from Oracle IP addresses was just using their servers as a la…
@shaig Shai Goldman on x
growth hacking is back! 😤 https://twitter.com/...
@jw @jw on x
this is some lame boomer shit [image]
@keithdsouza Keith on x
The “supposedly” town square of the world now requires you to show a gate pass to access “free speech” as defined by the MUSK constitution https://twitter.com/...
@stevesi Steven Sinofsky on x
One of the most common things I do is share tweets over Messages/WhatsApp/Signal with friends who are also on twitter. Now that sharing is broken. Reverting to screen shots is bad for everyone—bad for accessibility and readability.
@catacalypto Cat Manning on x
this website is so dead lol https://twitter.com/...
@gigawattconduit Justin Carter on x
Ah yes, the “opening instagram/tumblr from a browser link instead of redirecting you to the app” method https://twitter.com/...
@adribbleofink Aidan Moher on x
I assume this also means embedded tweets no longer work? https://twitter.com/...
@djangowexler Django Wexler on x
I just ... what? This is beyond shooting yourself in the foot, it's blowing your kneecap off with a shotgun. Eloin has lost his mind https://twitter.com/...
@girlmeetsgeek Kate-Madonna Hindes on x
Well, that's the final nail. Twitter is meaningless to SEO now. Your tweets remain in the Twitter-verse and have NO viewability outside the platform. I don't understand shooting your own platform to death. https://techcrunch.com/...
@dietrich @dietrich on x
Twitter just went dark to the web. https://www.theverge.com/...
@marshacollier Marsha Collier on x
Twitter has started blocking unregistered users from viewing tweets If you want to browse tweets, user profiles, and comment threads on the web, then you currently need to be signed in to a Twitter account. ⚠️ You MUST login to your account #tech https://www.theverge.com/...
@pati_gallardo Patricia Aas on x
Lol. One of the things I don't like about Bluesky is that it's a walled garden. But hey now twitter is too. This place is on a race to the bottom. https://www.theverge.com/...
@jotamide Jota on x
With this change, they killed 35 thousand references at the English Wikipedia overnight. https://twitter.com/... [image]
@iansherr Ian Sherr on x
The latest salvo in the AI content scrapping wars? https://twitter.com/...
@ziggyofak Ziggy on x
Has anything on here gotten better since the purchase? https://twitter.com/...
@mgsiegler M.G. Siegler on x
Slack embeds: broken. iMessage embeds: broken. Tweets now insanely less viral and thus, valued. So fucking stupid.
@arjunram Arjun Ram on x
@mgsiegler No it's even worse. See this - stupendously moronic 🤦🏻‍♂️ [video]
@hamburger Ellis on x
Twitter: pivots to video for growth Twitter: sorry you can't share videos with new users (lmao) https://twitter.com/...
@paullomax Paul Lomax on x
Good way to drive up user numbers as everyone will need an alt. https://twitter.com/...
@dsquareddigest Dan Davies on x
tfw you literally don't understand the key reporting concept of a monetizable daily average user https://twitter.com/...
@jgarzik Ser Jeff Garzik on x
This will break some browsing flows, and net-net reduce readership of Twitter. https://twitter.com/...
@harrymccracken Harry McCracken on x
Twitter has veered back and forth over the years on the question of whether being able to use it without logging in is a GREAT idea or the WORST IDEA EVER. https://www.theverge.com/...
@jagrbombed @jagrbombed on x
Cool so I should just screenshot tweets and not get him the web traffic https://twitter.com/...
@eriz35 Dr Buck on x
it will never not be hilarious that musk paid 44 billion for this website, without knowing the first thing about how and why people use it https://twitter.com/...
@aclippinger Alex Clippinger on x
Tragic change because crapping on conservatives in tweet replies, blocking them, and then circling back an hour later to see them coping about the block on main is a top tier user experience https://twitter.com/...
@zenofdesign Damion Schubert on x
The fact that @elonmusk continues to try to turn Twitter into a walled garden instead of letting it be the crossroads of the internet just shows how fundamentally he doesn't understand what he bought. Never has a man more deservingly lost tens of billions of dollars. https://twit…
@loganalogy Logan Turner on x
Boogity-woogity, https://twitter.com/ Login seems to be needed to read any tweet. Elon once griped of its unsuitability. Is Yaccarino a step from defeat? https://www.techmeme.com/...
@youngbitcoin @youngbitcoin on x
This is why I don't embed youtube or twitter (or insta or whatever) on any sites. You have no control over what those links will become. We learned this from image hosting sites a decade ago! https://twitter.com/...
@dimensionmedia David Bisset on x
As of now embedded tweets in blogs (such as I have in my #WordPress posts) still show up, but require a login if you click on them and go to the site. But I think it worked this is how it worked in the past. Although not confident embeds will be untouched indefinitely. https://tw…
@kayworxx @kayworxx on x
Sites that do this are SO insufferable, so of course Musk thinks it's a great idea https://twitter.com/...
@9six7 Brian Brown on x
If Elon was actively trying to wreck this website, what would he be doing differently? https://twitter.com/...
@mediaevan Evan DeSimone on x
If I owned this website, and I had made it this bad, I too would try to make sure no one could see it. https://twitter.com/...
@hulkamatt @hulkamatt on x
Genius makes tweets less visible https://twitter.com/...
@chknpuppetmk5 @chknpuppetmk5 on x
“I've heard there's some great content on Twitter dot com if better sign up to see what it is” https://twitter.com/...
@bradymweiler Brady Weiler on x
The brain genius who's running this app into the ground strikes again! https://twitter.com/...
@domdifurio @domdifurio on x
This site has such an insignificant user base relative to other platforms that you *really* don't have much reach to gain from posting on this site with a change like this. https://twitter.com/...
@jeffveillette Jeff Veillette on x
With each day I'm more certain that killing the site out of spite was the point https://twitter.com/...
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
does elon not realise he needs tweets to be more visible not less https://twitter.com/...
@bobdaduck @bobdaduck on x
nobody at twitter has the slightest idea how people use their website https://twitter.com/...
@gosearchmatters @gosearchmatters on x
This makes tweets less searchable and therefore available in Google Search. This is a loss for everyone creating valuable content exclusively for Twitter. https://twitter.com/...
@pt Parker on x
I wonder how many people have the issue where they use Private Browsing on Safari and can't open links in Twitter from other apps anymore at all. Thanks a lot, bird people. https://twitter.com/...
@rustybrick Barry Schwartz on x
What - no @twitter - I wonder how this will impact Google ranking Tweets - cc @johnmu https://twitter.com/...
@midwesthedgie @midwesthedgie on x
one other side effect of this is if an account that has blocked you keeps dropping really hateful shit in your replies, you won't ever know they are doing it. first Elon blocks APIs like BlockParty, now this. it's as if he wants to make this site as hate-filled as possible https:…
@kevinrothrock Kevin Rothrock on x
Wow, it seems you can no longer view hyperlinks to specific tweets without logging into a Twitter account. This makes sharing tweets with people who aren't members or aren't logged in a huge nuisance. [image]
@tree_of_alpha @tree_of_alpha on x
Twitter pushed an update overnight that makes viewing tweets and profiles impossible without being logged in. Elon is likely soon adopting the model of other social networks to force people to subscribe for the content. https://twitter.com/...
@moneroprophet @moneroprophet on x
@TitterDaily I'll copy what I said in another tweet here. This is indeed horrible for privacy. You can no longer browse Twitter incognito. [image]
@psychic_brian33 @psychic_brian33 on x
This means people wil no longer be able to listen to spaces on the outside,in another browser, without signing into Twitter. https://twitter.com/...
@austen Austen Allred on x
It's funny because this is the way Twitter worked for a very long time. Then Elon reversed that, to both praise and criticism. Now we go back. I love watching stuff like this happening at companies over time. Competing metrics forces different optimization. https://twitter.com/..…
@krausefx Felix Krause on x
It's like Reddit and Twitters are racing who's losing relevance faster https://twitter.com/...
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