Twitter claims advanced notice about rate limiting would have helped bad actors evade detection and says rate limiting had a “minimal” effect on advertising
The company claims bad actors could otherwise have changed their strategies. — Twitter has been even more of a mess …
EngadgetKris Holt
Context & Ripple Effects
Twitter had already signaled a shift toward graduated enforcement, planning reach limits for some rule-breaking accounts rather than relying only on suspensions. Rate limits extend that playbook from individual accounts to access itself, with the company framing opacity as part of abuse prevention.
The advertising rationale lands against a longer-running weakness: earlier coverage identified Twitter's ad-tracking and scale constraints as obstacles to selling results-focused advertising. The company is therefore trying to separate an anti-abuse control from fears of immediate advertiser disruption.
First-order effects
Twitter users and third-party services encounter constrained access while the platform withholds advance operational detail that it believes could help abusive actors adapt.
Advertisers receive Twitter's assurance that the restriction caused little immediate disruption, though the claim does not itself resolve broader questions about measurement and brand safety.
Second-order effects
Rival social platforms confronting spam face the same trade-off between transparent access rules and preserving the effectiveness of anti-abuse systems; Threads soon described tightening its own rate limits amid spam attacks.
For marketers, repeated access or moderation changes make platform reliability another consideration alongside targeting and attribution, increasing pressure on Twitter to substantiate advertising-performance claims.
Third-order effects
If platforms increasingly treat access limits as a security control, abuse prevention will become more tightly coupled to product availability, giving operators wider discretion over who can use and analyze their services.
The pattern reinforces platform gatekeeper leverage: platforms can set both distribution rules and the visibility of the data used to evaluate those rules, while advertisers and researchers have less independent evidence to assess outcomes.
The trend: Social platforms are moving toward more dynamic, less fully disclosed access controls as they balance spam defense against user experience and advertising confidence.
It makes me skeptical that a company run by someone who loves to name and shame people hasn't said who the bad actors are. We can assume but either it's unusual restraint or a way to avoid pointed denials. [embedded post]
Twitter says any advance notice on rate limiting “would have allowed bad actors to alter their behavior to evade detection.” Curious if that rationale extended to not alerting employees 🙃 https://twitter.com/...
We couldn't tell you we were going to ruin the site because the bots would have won. That's why we had to make fun of you for being mad. Because of bots. In fact every stupid thing we will be doing in the future is because of the bots. https://twitter.com/... [image]
This is so funny. Days after they started rate limiting and the statement from Twitter's CEO is “here's more insight into what we were doing,” with a link to the world's vaguest explanation possible https://twitter.com/...
Twitter The Company is so awful at communications in the Elon era. This blog says nothing, and came out a day AFTER the Twitter Rate limits. It's clear Elon still just does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. https://twitter.com/...
this should seem obvious by now but Elon and the folks running this place aren't playing nine dimensional chess or whatever they're just that dumb https://twitter.com/...
This is the most out of touch statement I've ever read. “A small percentage” of users affected? This is just an attempt to extort people into Twitter Blue and has done nothing to mitigate the bots on the platform. https://twitter.com/... [image]
Hey, @twitter, you know that rate limiting thing you did to stop all the bots? That thing which would finally, yeah, kill them off? Anyway I'm still reporting and blocking sexbots at the same rate as before. https://twitter.com/...
idk what to believe anymore, but i don't think routinely lying to your users about whipsaw policy decisions is the way to do things if you want to build and retain trust as a social network also, i've noticed no reduction in bots and instead feel like it's increased 🤷♂️ https://…
It's so funny they're trying to claim DDOSing themselves was some sort of strategy to fight bots and stop the manipulation of the conversation when twitter blue has helped all bots and the previously most unpopular takes dominate any reply section https://twitter.com/...
My take: an “global online town square” is going to get scraped - it comes with the territory. It's the users' content, not yours. If this really is necessary, it's because you cut the staff so much you're left with an amateur-hour last resort in the week a big rival launches. ht…
Over the past few days, we've taken action to keep making Twitter a great place for everyone. And we want you to know why 👇 https://business.twitter.com/ ...
When you have a mission like Twitter — you need to make big moves to keep strengthening the platform. This work is meaningful and on-going. Here's more insight on our work to ensure the authenticity of our user base. 👇 https://twitter.com/...