Over the weekend, regular timeline scrolling for Twitter users was interrupted by an unusual error message: “Rate limit exceeded”.
After some initial confusion and panic, Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted some clarifying statements on the new restrictions. On July 1, the richest man in the world stated: “To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits.” His breakdown of this new system continued with “Verified accounts are limited to reading 6,000 posts [per] day, unverified accounts to 600 posts [per] day, new unverified accounts to 300 [posts per] day.”
Since then, Musk has increased the view rate limits to 10,000 for verified accounts, 1,000 for unverified accounts, and 500 for new unverified accounts. Still, with this increase, many Twitter users weren’t satisfied, specifically Black Twitter.
Black Twitter is Twitter’s internet community consisting of Black users talking about Black popular culture, news, entertainment, and everything else. While the Black diaspora is massive, Black Twitter is accredited to African Americans.
“One thing about Black Twitter, we gon joke until the app shuts down,” @Dvrryl2times tweeted. Along with the jokes, Black Twitter seems to be moving onto a different home. The new gathering place is a social media app called Spill.
Spill is founded by Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell and DeVaris Brown, former Twitter employees. The invite-only beta is described on official branding as a “visual conversation moving at the speed of culture.” While anyone can access the app with a code invite, founders Terrell and Brown have noted a preference for marginalized identities such as Black and/or Queer creators.
“The Spill app is black as f*ck. I love that,” @kemimarie tweeted.
The app’s interface is a mix between Twitter and Tumblr, and its main colors blue and green. Still, in its infancy, there are some kinks to iron out. But with the plausible impending implosion of Twitter, Black users will finally have somewhere to go.
