LAUSANNE, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 14, 2023--

Oil companies including Shell Plc and Eni SpA should pay $12 billion to repair environmental devastation in Nigeria’s

As per Elon Musk's latest announcement, Twitter has started limiting the number of tweets a person can read. The tech mogul, who took over the platform in October in a $44 billion (£35 billion) sale, revealed on Sunday (2 July) that verified accounts can read up to 6,000 posts a day. Meanwhile, unverified users are limited to 600 a day, with newer Twitter accounts restricted to reading 300. "Rate limits increasing soon to 8,000 for verified, 800 for unverified & 400 for new unverified," he added later. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said Twitter had imposed the "temporary limit" to "address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation." The decision sparked a furious backlash from many users, with one writing: "Sooo what’s everyone’s Instagram? Where we movin’ to cause this Twitter limit is dumb AF." Another added: "Seriously fed up with twitter now. This ‘rate limit’ thing is ridiculous. You can’t read a thread or see replies. What is the point? Why is Elon doing this… and why didn’t he warn people weeks ago if he was going to change rules?" Musk did not say when the limits will increase, or how long the restrictions will be in place for. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Inevitably, many more Twitter users hit back at the move in the most Twitter way possible: Memes. To add salt to the wound, thousands of people complained of problems accessing the site on Saturday (1 July). #Twitterdown and RIP Twitter began trending as frustrated users were faced with a message saying "Rate limit exceeded. Please wait a few moments then try again." Last week, people trying to access Twitter were told they would need to log in to an account to view tweets, in what Musk called a "temporary emergency measure." It comes after another outage in February, when many users were not able to tweet, follow accounts or access their direct messages as the platform was plagued by widespread technical problems. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC said Tuesday its production of ever-smaller microchips will remain on the island, hopeful that the critical industry will have a "stabilising...

Eno Alaric claimed that the aliens are descending onto Earth this Thursday, August 17

As world leaders gathered at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City this week, everyone seemed

The Metropolitan Police has been made aware of “unauthorised access the IT system of one of its suppliers”, the force said. Scotland Yard is now working with the company to understand if there has been any security breach relating to its data. The company in question had access to names, ranks, photos, vetting levels and pay numbers for officers and staff, but did not hold personal information such as addresses, phone numbers or financial details, the force said. A spokesman for the force was unable to say when the breach occurred. The Met has taken “security measures” as a result. The matter has been reported to the National Crime Agency – and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is also aware, the Met said. It follows an admission by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) that personal data on all its serving members was mistakenly published in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. Details of around 10,000 PSNI officers and staff included the surname and first initial of every employee, their rank or grade, where they are based and the unit they work in. After the PSNI breach was revealed, Norfolk and Suffolk Police announced the personal data of more than 1,000 people – including crime victims – was included in another FOI response. On Wednesday, South Yorkshire Police referred itself to the ICO after noticing “a significant and unexplained reduction in data stored on its systems”. The force said it is now urgently working with experts to recover footage filmed by officers as they attended incidents or engaged with the public and which, in some cases, could be used as evidence in court.

Adin Ross announces that UFC fighters Sean O'Malley and Aljamain Sterling join his stream, coinciding with their UFC 292 main event clash on August 20, 2023

Twitter has been plunged into chaos in recent days, amid new “rate limits” and rules that actually stop people from using the site. The changes have been dramatic enough that they have led to speculation that they could be the thing to finally doom Elon Musk’s takeover of the social network. What are the ‘rate limits’? It is a somewhat technical term for a complex process that has a simple effect: users are rationed on how many tweets they can see. If people and the apps they use make too many requests too often – in this case for tweets – then the service will stop providing them. On Twitter, the new rate limits are different depending on what kind of user is on: someone who pays for the premium “Twitter Blue” service will get more than a normal user, for instance. They are also changing all the time, with the limit being increased recently. Twitter has long had rate limits, which ensure that malicious actors cannot send huge number of requests to the site and bring it down, for instance. But they would previously only have been hit by people using specific tools, since they were much higher. What happens when you hit the limit? Users will see a warning telling them they have received the rate limit. The site will then stop working properly, because it will refuse to load any more tweets. Why has it happened? The official explanation is that Elon Musk is concerned about how many artificial intelligence companies are scraping posts from Twitter in order to feed to their systems and teach them more about how to use language. In an attempt to stop that, Mr Musk placed the limits to make it harder for that scraping to happen. But there is no proof that is actually the case. The problems at Twitter may well be infrastructural issues caused by the site’s engineering, and its lack of staff, that have made it incapable of serving normal requests. Or it might be a mix of the two. There is no doubt that the site is being scraped, but rate limits of this kind are an unusual way of responding to it, and other sites that are being scraped have not needed to do the same thing. Are there other changes? The other major change instituted recently by Elon Musk is to ban people who are not signed into the site from seeing posts. This is ostensibly for the same reason, since it means that scrapers cannot just gather up posts from the site from the outside. It already means that some things about Twitter are not working as they used to. If someone sends a tweet within a messaging app, for instance, then the posts’ preview won’t show, since the app cannot access the tweet. Will this change how people use Twitter? Almost certainly. Much of Twitter’s value lies in its high-profile and high-commitment users: the celebrities, organisations and big brands who use it to post, and the engaged users who follow them. That is much of what sustains its place in culture, even as it gets fewer users than much bigger social networks such as Facebook. The recent changes have directly antagonised those users. Big organisations cannot rely on tweets as a way for anyone to see what they’re posting, since users have to be logged in; engaged users cannot rely on being able to use the platform, since they are set to be rate limited. What’s more, the recent changes could cause problems for advertisers, given how important it is for users to stay engaged and see their posts. Companies are already using Twitter less for advertising, as a result of other controversies, and that may just continue. Is this the end? Some people have been predicting an end to Twitter since long before Elon Musk took it over; when he did, those predictions got louder and more regular, but they have still been largely wrong. It appears that no matter what Mr Musk does, people keep logging on and using the site. That might well be largely due to network effects: the idea that the value really comes from the number of people using the platform, which also makes it very difficult to create a new one. People might be unhappy on Twitter, but the network effect means they might feel lonely or that they are missing out if they move elsewhere. But all of that doesn’t mean that this time around won’t be the end. Certainly the latest problems have the most obviously problematic effect, of forcing Twitter’s most engaged users to not use the app, which might finally encourage them to go elsewhere. In the end, the discussion is often based on the idea that there will be some big moment that causes everyone to leave Twitter, or for the app to die. In fact, social networks have tended to decline slowly before they are finally shut down; something that might already be happening on Twitter. What are the alternatives to Twitter? Again, people have been trying to replace Twitter for years, for reasons including everything from protests against its content management rules to opposition to its centralised nature. Attempts to create a new Twitter have only increased since Elon Musk took over the original one. But they have almost always failed to take off. Network effects and the relative maturity of Twitter as a platform mean that they have always faced a challenge, and never really met it. As such there are a number of alternatives to Twitter. Notable among them are Mastodon, which is decentralised and has become perhaps the most discussed new alternative, and Bluesky, an effort to build a new kind of Twitter that originally began with the company. But the most promising alternative might be about to launch. Meta is launching Threads this week, an app linked to Instagram that aims to allow people to post text updates that might have the might to actually take over from Twitter. What is happening to TweetDeck? TweetDeck also went down along with Twitter over the weekend. It’s unclear how the two are connected, though they happened at the same time. Now Twitter has announced that TweetDeck is coming back. But it comes with some changes, and the most notable of them is that people will have to pay for Twitter Blue to get access to it. Read More Twitter to stop TweetDeck access for unverified users Meta’s Twitter alternative Threads to be launched this week How Elon Musk finally broke Twitter – and why it might just be the start Twitter rival Bluesky halts sign-ups after huge surge in demand Twitter is breaking more and more Twitter rival sees huge increase in users as Elon Musk ‘destroys his site’

Amazon just dropped refurbished device deals ahead of Prime Day. Here are the best ones:

Spotify will reportedly raise the price of its premium plan the United States to $10.99

The TimTheTatman and NICKMERCS Warzone 2 Bundles, featuring Operator skins of the popular streamers, are now live in the Store for 2,400 COD points.