Days after requiring users to log in to view tweets, Twitter has silently removed these restrictions. This means you can open Twitter links in a browser without an account.
We at TechCrunch noticed that tweet previews are unfurling in Slack and WhatsApp. Folks at Engadget noted that Twitter previews were visible on iMessage as well.
When Twitter started enforcing the login requirement, Musk said that he took these “temporary” measures to prevent data scraping.
“Temporary emergency measure. We were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!” he said in a tweet.
The company hasn’t made any official announcement about allowing users to view links when you aren’t logged in or given any details on what measures it has taken to stop scraping.
Twitter’s move comes a day before Meta launches its own text-based app called Threads. Interestingly, Threads also briefly allowed users to view posts on the web without logging in before pulling the links. It is likely that people will be able to see Threads posts without an account when the app officially launches.
Over the weekend, Musk also put read limits of 1,000 posts per day for unverified users and 10,000 posts per day for verified users as a measure to battle data scraping. In a blog post, the company said that this change has affected a “small percentage of people” and “effects on advertising have been minimal.”