X has rolled out new restrictions on the amount of times that non-paying users can post in the app each day, as it looks to combat bot activity, and limit the capacity of spammers and scammers to flood the platform with junk.
X quietly changed its posting limits for non-Premium users earlier this week, with unverified users now limited to 50 original posts and 200 replies per day.
That’s down from 2,400 posts per day, which was the limit up till at least April (according to the Wayback Machine).
DM limits, meanwhile, have remained unchanged at 500 per day per user, while accounts can also follow up to 400 profiles per day before reaching the rate limit.
Soposting numbers are the only ones that have been limited, as X continues to explore new ways to rein in spam replies, and users who continuously post useless junk in the app.
X has been trying out various approaches to combat posts that offer limited insight, from restricting “gm” posts within crypto communities, to limiting the reach of users who include the term “BREAKING” in every one of their updates.
That push aims to improve the general quality of discussion in the app, while it will also help to improve X’s data stream, which feeds into its xAI system that informs its Grok chatbot and other AI tools.
Because if the X data stream is imbalanced, and is not reflective of general conversation, then Grok, for example, could overvalue certain terms and words, which could then influence its responses, and make it a less valuable, less conversational tool.
Ideally, X would be able to clean up its feed to ensure more relevant, reflective input, which demonstrates how real people talk, and the key topics of interest. Artificially inflated trends can hurt in this respect, which is another reason why X wants to improve the stream, aside from the direct engagement benefits.
As such, restricting non-paying users will make it harder for spammers to flood the app, by making it cost-prohibitive to do so. At the same time, if users really want to post more than 50 times per day, this will push them towards paying for X Premium, another potential bonus for the app.
But will the new restrictions have a real impact?
Well, considering that 80% of X users never post anything at all in the app, and very few would be looking to reply more than 200 times within a 24-hour period, these moves probably won’t have a big impact on regular users.
But there will be an impact on junk posters, and on that front, this could be a positive update for the overall X experience.
