Twitter has effectively become a fully walled garden

Earlier today, I realized that I couldn't open tweets on my browser anymore - unless I was logged in. Considering how much effort Musk is putting into the enshittification of the platform, I wasn't really surprised.

The Verge soon confirmed that Twitter has effectively become a fully walled garden:

Twitter has started blocking unregistered users

Elon Musk blamed “data pillage” and claims the move is temporary.

The Verge

From the point of view of a content creator, it means that all of your tweets have instantly become private. As far as I can tell, embeds still work. But unless your readers have a Twitter account and are logged in, or they read your tweets as embeds, they are not able to read any of your tweets anymore.

It's an completely unacceptable situation, especially considering users do not have any control on how public or private their tweets are. Musk unilaterally decided that all tweets are now private, full stop.

In a tweet, Musk said the following:

Temporary emergency measure. We were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!

Considering his proven track record of having no idea how Twitter actually works, I wouldn't be surprised if Twitter is absolutely not "data pillaged". Most importantly, I don't believe him when he wrote that it's a "temporary […] measure". I'm not saying he's lying, I'm rather saying that I have no reason to outright trust him.

In any case, this new development is another illustration that Twitter is not a welcoming place for content creators anymore. If your content can instantly go private without any option for you to change that, it means you have lost a large amount of control on your content.

Personally, this new development is fortifying my plan to leave Twitter as soon as it is economically feasible. The unreliability and chaotic nature of the platform is a major distraction. I want to write content, not to spend my time having to deal with the consequences of the action a billionaire manchild who has no idea what he's doing.