Twitter users who don't pay the social media service $8 per month will soon have the ability to direct message other Twitter users restricted. The announcement comes from the official Twitter Support account on Twitter.
There, Twitter published on July 21, 2023 the following message: "We'll soon be implementing some changes in our effort to reduce spam in Direct Messages. Unverified accounts will have daily limits on the number of DMs they can send".
The announcement ended with a link to Twitter's subscription page to increase the daily limit again.
The company did not provide specifics on the new limit. It did not reveal when the change takes effect and there is no information currently on the limits. How many direct messages are non-paying Twitter users allowed to send before the limit kicks in?
Another aspect that has not been explained yet is whether the limits apply to all direct messages or just to direct messages between users who do not follow each other. It looks as if Twitter won't make a distinction between these two cases and some critics may see this as confirmation that the site's main intent is to increase subscriber counts by reducing the functionality for non-paying members of the site.
Twitter subscribers have a number of advantages already over non-paying members. They may post tweets, replies and quotes with up to 25,000 characters, have their posts prioritized for extra visibility, may use bold and italic in texts, see less advertisement and may also edit tweets among other benefits. Soon, they may also hide the Twitter Blue icon.
The official Twitter Blue sign-up page does not list the restriction of Direct Messages yet.
Twitter owner Elon Musk revealed recently that the site's advertising dropped by about 50% and that the site has not reached a positive cash flow yet. The upcoming direct messaging limits may reduce spam on the site, but they may also increase revenue. All of this depends on the daily limits: if set low, it will certainly irritate Twitter users who encounter the limits. Some may subscriber to Twitter Blue to increase their limits, others may reduce their activity on the site instead as a consequence of the latest restrictive move aimed at non-paying site members.
Twitter implemented direct messaging restrictions already on the site recently. These have reduced direct message spam by 70% for users who were switched or switched to the new option to only allow messages by verified Twitter users and contacts.
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