# Now that Elon Musk has bought Twitter - now the Pit edition (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 25, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442 "2022-04-25T22:50:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 270
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5386 "2023-07-01T20:50:31Z")
I just checked and I’m still logged in and able to see it. ---
**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5387 "2023-07-01T20:54:58Z")
I think **Andy\_L** was referring to Nitter, which no longer works. ---
**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5388 "2023-07-01T21:33:50Z")
Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey has tweeted a photo of some grass, presumably to suggest that “the grass is greener” over at his new social networking service Bluesky, which many Twitter users are today discussing migrating from Twitter to. [![](https://i.imgur.com/3OBNkO4.png) ](https://i.imgur.com/3OBNkO4.png) For some reason, Elok Muns has retweeted this. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5389 "2023-07-01T21:36:40Z")
> ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5390 "2023-07-01T21:48:59Z")
Called it! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5391 "2023-07-01T22:00:51Z")
I barely use Twitter, but I open it a few times a day to scroll through whatever’s trending. So, I’m scrolling through and I get a message suggesting that I “Slow Down” because I’ve already viewed 580 tweets, most which were links to the exact same news story………because that’s how the trend lines work. I closed the window then tried to get it back so I could screen shot the stupid “Slow Down” message……just scroll slower, everyone……you’ll last longer - and soon ended up rate limited. I replied to Elon early today, the only tweet I sent today. I called him an idiot for putting quotation marks around the word “temporary”. Twitter suggested that most people on Twitter are more polite than I am, and asked me if I really wanted to send that tweet. I sent it and I’m waiting to see if I get jailed or banned for it. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5392 "2023-07-01T22:07:52Z")
Twitter and Reddit are doing the same thing - trying to protect their IP in the age of AI. The open, free APIs were allowing people to constantly pull down content from the sites for their own databases. So both companies locked down their APIs. In Twitter’s case, it looks like people then switched to writing scrapers that just scraped the content from the public facing web pages instead of the API. This is trivially easy in the age of AI - ChatGPT will happily write a Twitter scraper for you. So these sites are probably now being inundated by scrapers, thus the throttling. I don’t know what the answer is here. Looks like Elon’s got a problem. Actually, he’s got an even bigger problem: He made sport of pissing off a whole lot of people with IT skills, and I suspect he is going to be fighting hackers, scrapers, trolls, and other people trying to harm him and Twitter for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5393 "2023-07-01T22:10:16Z")
“Extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation” = “My mass firings of people who knew how to run this thing and extreme corner-cutting is having effects I can’t cover up any more” ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5394 "2023-07-01T22:17:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Truth Social works fine. Maybe the data scrapers don’t think it’s worth bothering with. ---
**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5395 "2023-07-01T22:24:44Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Truth Social works fine. > > Maybe the data scrapers don’t think it’s worth bothering with. Barrels can be scraped too. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5396 "2023-07-01T22:28:12Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Truth Social works fine. ⁢ > > Maybe the data scrapers don’t think it’s worth bothering with. ⁢ LLMs already have way too much of a problem with “hallucination” to want to add conspiracy theories to the mix. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5397 "2023-07-01T22:47:42Z")
[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz-vvhPWAAU-h5q?format=jpg&name=large) ](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz-vvhPWAAU-h5q?format=jpg&name=large) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5398 "2023-07-01T23:10:15Z")
Correct. This `https://syndication.twitter.com/srv/timeline-profile/screen-name/{username}` works at the moment, but stand by ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5399 "2023-07-01T23:24:18Z")
Survey Says… Bzzzzzzt ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5400 "2023-07-01T23:41:31Z")
Here comes the agile backpedaling! [![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz-V4P4WIAMS524?format=png&name=900x900) ](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz-V4P4WIAMS524?format=png&name=900x900) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5401 "2023-07-01T23:44:22Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > Survey Says… > > Bzzzzzzt Now, now, have some respect for dead-ender determination. I am reminded of Emperor Constantine XI, fighting the final battle as the Turks broke through the city walls… ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5402 "2023-07-01T23:57:09Z")
The company also has a lot of debt. With rising interest rates, it’s going to be difficult for them to borrow enough money to keep the lights on. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2023, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5403 "2023-07-02T00:00:15Z")
Let us also not forget. He’s not a Musk fanboy. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2023, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5404 "2023-07-02T00:26:44Z")
Translation: we’ve been able to successfully address the issue of us DDoSing ourselves enough to let you read 25% more twits a day sometime soon! ---
**Author:** ![Mr.E](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.e/32/8932_2.png) [@Mr.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.E)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2023, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/5405 "2023-07-02T00:58:32Z")
Two things: 1. Genuinely who cares if other companies are scraping your data? You are running a public website where free access to its data is a huge selling point. By all means block the ones that are obvious and ingesting data at such a rate that it’s affecting server performance, but this shit is going to happen. 2. Punishing actual users for the supposed actions of bots and scrapers is hilariously inept. There are plenty of tools available to verify human activity without making them spend money (notably something that automated systems have been doing fine for decades). Deploy captchas to questionable accounts. Monitor for non-human usage patterns. Twitter is a website that makes money primarily by showing people advertisements. How much would advertisers pay for a TV commercial if they knew people could only watch for an hour or so per day? 3. Okay actually it’s three yeah this is obviously the result of a necessary backend system going down, maybe they thought they could live without it but it turns out that the parts of the site that are still working are bugging out trying to connect to the parts that don’t anymore causing massive strain that they didn’t anticipate. It’s being spun as an intentional act, which has the same appearance as accidentally shooting yourself in the foot and pretending like you meant to do that, as if shooting yourself on purpose was a necessary and important act. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442.md?page=269) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442.md?page=271)