X's Free, Unverified Accounts Tightened Further as Posts Are Limited and Accounts Can Be Locked

The microblogging service X (formerly Twitter) has officially released extremely strict daily technical limits, specifically for free or unverified accounts. Unverified accounts, or those without the blue tick on their profile, will be restricted from posting. According to an X Help Centre update document, unverified accounts are now only allowed to publish a maximum of 50 original posts and 200 replies per day. That figure marks a drastic reduction. Previously, the X system was relatively generous, allowing free users to publish up to 2,400 posts per day. In other words, if a user sends or schedules a large number of posts within a given hour, the system will immediately temporarily lock the account. The account will be temporarily frozen even if the user has not actually reached the daily limit of 50 posts. If a user inadvertently hits the limit, the system will display an error message. Thereafter, users face two main options: accept a reset after the interval, or pay to upgrade to the paid X Premium subscription. This rigid cap also extends to other basic communication features. The daily limit for Direct Messages (DMs) for free accounts is now capped at 500 messages. Furthermore, X also restricts the number of accounts one can follow to a maximum of 400 profiles per day. An additional rule on the platform will begin to lock the ‘account ratio’ once a user has followed a total of 5,000 accounts. The company says these successive technical limits are intended for operational purposes. They claim the measures are necessary to stabilise the platform’s infrastructure and minimise server outages, according to KompasTekno’s summary of Android Headlines and X’s Help Centre page.