Twitter says users must be verified to access TweetDeck

Twitter users will soon need to be verified in order to use TweetDeck, the social media company said in a tweet on Monday (July 3).

We have just launched a new, improved version of TweetDeck. All users can continue to access their saved searches & workflows via https://t.co/2WwL3hNVR2 by selecting “Try the new TweetDeck” in the bottom left menu.

Some notes on getting started and the future of the product…

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 3, 2023

The change will take effect in 30 days, the company said.

Twitter made the announcement in a tweet detailing an improved version of TweetDeck with new features. It was unclear if Twitter will charge users for both the new and old version of TweetDeck. Twitter did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Charging for TweetDeck, which was previously free and is widely used by businesses and news organisations to easily monitor content, could bring a revenue boost to Twitter, which has struggled to retain advertising revenue under billionaire Elon Musk's ownership.

The move comes just days after Musk said that both verified and unverified users would have a limited number of posts they could read per day "to address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation".

To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits:

- Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
- Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
- New unverified accounts to 300/day

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023

His announcement sparked a fierce backlash from users on Twitter, and ad experts said it would undermine new CEO Linda Yaccarino, who started in the role last month.

Individuals must pay US$8 (S$10.80) per month to verify their account, while organisations pay $1,000 per month.

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