Twitter users run into service issues after Elon Musk imposes daily limits on reading tweets
San Francisco (AP): Thousands of people logged complaints about problems accessing Twitter on Saturday after owner Elon Musk limited most users to viewing 600 tweets a day restrictions he described as an attempt to prevent unauthorised scraping of potentially valuable data from the site.
The crackdown began to have ripple effects early Saturday, causing more than 7,500 people at one point to report problems using the social media service, based on complaints registered on Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages.
Although that's a relatively small number of Twitter's more than 200 million worldwide users, the trouble was widespread enough to cause the #TwitterDown hashtag to trend in some parts of the world.
The service disruptions cropped up a day after Twitter began requiring people to log on to the service in order to view tweets and profiles a change in its longtime practice to allow all comers to peruse the chatter on what Musk has frequently touted as the world's digital town square since buying it for USD 44 billion last year.
In a Friday tweet, Musk described the new restrictions as a temporary measure that was taken because "we were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!" Musk elaborated on the measures in a Saturday tweet that announced unverified accounts will temporarily be limited to reading 600 posts per day while verified accounts will be able to scroll through up to 6,000 posts per day.
The restrictions could result in users being locked out of Twitter for the day after scrolling through several hundred tweets.
The higher threshold allowed on verified accounts is part of an USD 8 per month subscription service that Musk rolled out earlier this year in an effort to boost Twitter revenue that has fallen sharply since he took over the company and laid off roughly three-fourths of the workforce to cuts costs and stave off bankruptcy.
Advertisers have since curbed their spending on Twitter, partly because of changes that have allowed more sometimes hateful and prickly content that offends a wider part of the service's audience. Musk recently hired longtime NBC Universal executive Linda Yaccarino to become Twitter's CEO in an effort to win back advertisers.
An Associated Press inquiry about Saturday's access problems triggered a crude automated reply that Twitter sends to most press inquiries without addressing the question.
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Maharashtra's top post eluded Ajit Pawar after six stints as Deputy CM
Mumbai (PTI): For Ajit Pawar, it was a perennial case of "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride", as the Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister for a record six times passed away in a tragic air crash on Wednesday, without realising his goal of becoming the chief minister.
For the 66-year-old grassroots politician, the end came in Baramati, his home turf.
A seasoned politician, Ajit Pawar never hid his desire to become the state’s CM. Before joining the BJP and Shiv Sena alliance government in July 2023, he was deputy CM when Devendra Fadnavis was the CM in November 2019, their government lasting barely two days.
Pawar was known to be a workaholic, and was famous for his punctuality, unlike many politicians notorious for their tardiness.
He had the record of becoming the deputy chief minister in several governments, led by the Congress, Shiv Sena and BJP.
His political career was marked by twists and turns, and he was always the survivor, be it the alleged Rs 70,000 crore irrigation scam or the recent controversy over his son Parth’s land deal in Pune.
Affectionately called ‘’Dada’’ (elder brother), Ajit Pawar was known to speak his mind and did not mince words while expressing his view especially before a rural audience.
In 2013, Ajit Pawar stirred up a hornet's nest with comments ridiculing the acute water and power shortage in parts of the state. He was forced to issue a public apology after his remarks came in for all-round criticism.
Addressing a public meeting in a village in Pune's Indapur, he had mocked Bhaiyya Deshmukh, a farmer from a drought-hit area in Solapur who was on a hunger strike at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan, demanding more water.
“He has been fasting for the last 55 days. If there is no water in the dam, how can we release it? Should we urinate into it? If there is no water to drink, even urination is not possible,” he had said.
Referring to the load shedding situation in parts of the state, he had said, “I have noticed that more children are being born since the lights go off at night. There is no other work left then.”
In July 2023, he stepped out of his uncle and NCP founder’s Sharad Pawar’s shadow by rebelling against him and walking away with most of the party’s MLAs, along with the party’s name and symbol.
After a setback in last year’s Lok Sabha election where his party won only one seat, he outwitted critics by bagging 41 seats in the assembly polls five months later, in alliance with the BJP. The NCP(SP) got only 10 seats.
Since the 2024 assembly results, Ajit Pawar fortified his position in state politics.
Despite his alliance with BJP and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, he stressed that he had joined the ruling alliance for development and had not deviated from his core progressive ideology.
He stayed focussed on his party and his ministries while political speculation centred around the so-called one-upmanship between chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and the other deputy CM Eknath Shinde.
Born on July 22, 1959 to Asha and Anantrao Pawar, Ajit Pawar followed the footsteps of his uncle (his father;s younger brother) Sharad Pawar into politics in 1982 when he was elected to the board of a sugar factory.
In 1991, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Baramati and later vacated the seat for his uncle who then became defence minister in P V Narasimha Rao’s government.
Ajit Pawar then served as Baramati MLA for eight terms from 1991.
Ajit Pawar, who was the finance and planning minister, would have tabled his budget for 2026-27 next month when the state legislature’s budget session begins in Mumbai on February 23.
In the days to come, the focus will be on the future of the NCP factions, with political circles buzzing with the possible merger of the two outfits.
