Back in June, an unconfirmed report stated Twitter was planning on limiting the number of Direct Messages people could send if they had an unverified account. Late on Friday, Twitter confirmed that it would indeed place caps on the number of DMs unverified users can send per day.
In a post on the Twitter Support account, the social network said it was making this change "in our effort to reduce spam in Direct Messages." It did not reveal exactly when this new "feature" will start rolling out, nor what the actual daily DM limits will be.
We"ll soon be implementing some changes in our effort to reduce spam in Direct Messages. Unverified accounts will have daily limits on the number of DMs they can send. Subscribe today to send more messages: https://t.co/0CI4NTRw75
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 21, 2023
The message added that in order to send more DMs per day, users could subscribe to a Twitter Blue plan, which costs $8 a month. In addition to getting the verified "Blue" checkmark on your account, the Twitter Blue subscription adds other features like the ability to write posts up to 10,000 characters, along with a way to edit posts after they are sent out, and a reduction of ads.
Speaking of which, ad revenue for Twitter is way down, according to its owner Elon Musk. In a Twitter post from earlier this week, he admitted, "We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load."
We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load. Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2023
Besides the DM spam, that may be the unsaid reason for Twitter suddenly limiting the number of direct messages for unverified accounts. The company is likely to be desperate to get some positive cash flow, and the restriction of certain features for unverified accounts is a good way for at least some of them to consider buying a Twitter Blue subscription.