Instagram Threads Faces Rate Limits Due to Spam Attacks
It looks like Twitter isn’t the only one having to turn to rate limits — or limits on how many posts users can view. In an amusing turn of events, Twitter’s latest rival, Instagram Threads, announced this afternoon that it, too, has to tighten up on rate limits due to spam attacks.
Elon Musk’s Response to Instagram Threads
Twitter owner Elon Musk couldn’t help but laugh at Instagram Threads’ need for rate limits. He responded in a tweet saying, “Lmaooo Copy [cat].” You can see the full reply here.
Lmaooo
Copy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2023
As you may recall, Twitter earlier this month had to enforce new limits on how many tweets users could read as the service suffered an extended outage. Explained Musk at the time, Twitter was facing “extreme levels of data scraping” from hundreds of organizations and other “system manipulation.”
New Rate Limits for Twitter Users
Initially, Twitter allowed Verified users (paying subscribers) to peruse a maximum of 6,000 posts daily, while unverified users could only view 600. After receiving backlash, Musk increased the limits to 10,000 for Verified accounts, 1,000 for unverified accounts, and 500 for new, unverified accounts.
Over the weekend, Musk announced that he would further increase the rate limit for Verified users by 50%, allowing them to see 15,000 posts.
Twitter faced criticism for its approach to tackling spam and bots, with some suggesting that the issue wouldn’t have arisen if the company hadn’t downsized its engineering staff. Nevertheless, Meta’s new app, Instagram Threads, is now finding itself dealing with similar problems.
Adam Mosseri Addresses the Spam Problem on Threads
Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained the problem in a post on the Threads app, stating that “Spam attacks have picked up so we’re going to have to get tighter on things like rate limits, which is going to mean more unintentionally limiting active people (false positives). If you get caught up [in] those protections let us know.”
In contrast to Twitter’s strict limits, Mosseri suggests reaching out if users experience issues due to the rate limits. It appears that the Threads team is willing to work with legitimate users to mitigate any negative impact on their experience.
Several users responded to Mosseri’s announcement, complaining about the increasing amount of comment spam on the platform. One user mentioned that half of their posts received responses from bots, including ones related to gambling or “bait” messages. Another user expressed frustration with wasting time blocking bots promoting gambling and crypto sites.
Without addressing the bot and spam issue, Threads may find itself facing the same challenges as Twitter in terms of providing a quality user experience.
