Twitter has applied temporary daily reading limits to address “extreme levels” of data scraping and system manipulation, Elon Musk has said.

In a tweet, Musk said verified accounts have been temporarily limited to reading 6,000 posts a day.

Unverified Twitter accounts have been limited to reading 600 posts a day, while new unverified accounts can only view 300 posts a day.

Some users reported seeing a message stating “rate limit exceeded” on Saturday – and RIP Twitter and #Twitterdown began trending on the social media site.

Musk, who is also the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, has not said how long the temporary limits will last for.

People started reporting problems shortly after midday UK time, according to problem and outage monitoring site Downdetector. By 6pm, the website had received thousands of reports.

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The latest move comes after Twitter previously announced that it will require users to have an account on the social media platform in order to view tweets, a move that Musk on Friday called a “temporary emergency measure”.

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The billionaire completed a $44bn (£35bn) takeover of the social media site in October 2022, and in April introduced a payment system for “blue ticks”, or verified accounts.

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In May, then NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino was announced as Twitter’s new chief executive, with Musk, 52, saying he would take up the role of executive chairman.

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