Combating Spam Attacks with Instagram’s Rate Limits

Elon and Co. We are going to will love this.

The issue of data scraping is rising, and generative AI projects are looking for inputs to feed into their systems, along with scammers seeking out new vulnerabilities in apps.

In such a scenario, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has announced that they will introduce tighter rate limits on Threads, also known as the new Twitter-like app.

As outlined by Mosseri, Meta is implementing rate limits to protect users from spam attacks in the new app, but it might also be related to data scraping.

It is the key motivator for Twitter introducing its rate limits recently that have been widely criticized by Twitter users and tech analysts alike.

The rate limits of Twitter left several people locked out of the app after reaching a certain amount of viewed tweets. Twitter owner Elon Musk explains that the move was necessary to address extreme data scraping and system manipulation levels.

While he also points to generative AI projects as the fundamental cause, it might have overloaded Twitter’s servers.

Twitter has since increased its rate limits, with paying subscribers able to view more content than non-Twitter Blue members.

But the whole situation had been framed as another failure of Elon Musk in managing the app and misunderstanding the social media ecosystem.

And now, Meta is doing the same. And as you would expect, Elon has responded in his usual restrained way.

It is challenging to know the impacts of these new rate limits on Threads users and how many people will be affected by the restrictions.

But Mosseri notes that those who think they have been rated limited unfairly can contact Instagram to address the situation.

It is not perfect, but it’s seemingly a necessary step, as it might be on Twitter too. To stop third parties from manipulating social media systems and taking data without permission.

And without an API, there is no way to gain Threads data other than through scraping. It is a new consideration in the age of generative AI development.

You can click here to learn more about Instagram and Instagram Threads.