Analysis of Google search data by comparison service CasinoAlpha has revealed that online interest in the term ‘Delete Twitter’ and ‘Delete Twitter account’ has shot up by 983% and 520% in the UK and 131% worldwide in July as the company began limiting the number of tweets, prompting backlash and confusion among users about whether the app was down.
Elon Musk said in a post on Saturday that verified accounts were now limited to viewing 6,000 posts per day, with a limit of just 600 for unverified accounts and 300 for new unverified accounts.
In his post, Musk explains this was done to combat “data scraping and system manipulation.” But this change has caused backlash and confusion from affected users.
At the same time, searches for ‘How to delete Twitter account’ soared by 2,806% in the UK and 152% worldwide on July 1 as UK-based account holders found out how they will be affected. The latest move to restrict accounts has prompted a 4,173% rise in searches for ‘Is Twitter down’ in the UK and 3,880% worldwide as viewers are hit with view limits without explanation.
Tudor Turiceanu, CEO of CasinoAlpha, commented on the findings: “Limiting the number of tweets that users can view is a major change to Twitter. It appears that these restrictions have not been properly communicated to users, as there has been a sharp rise in searches querying if the website is down. This appears to be the latest move to attract users to its paid subscription platform, with Twitter blue users able to read ten times the tweets of a free account holder. However, some users have been turned off, as these findings show a huge rise in Twitter users looking to delete their accounts.”
