Jack Dorsey has said it is “critical to preserve the open internet” after Twitter owner Elon Musk announced controversial new “rate limits” for viewing tweets on the social media platform. The Twitter co-founder and former chief said “running Twitter is hard” after widespread backlash against Mr Musk’s temporary limits on the number of tweets people can read on the microblogging site. He, however, expressed hopes that the platform would build on “censorship-resistant open protocols” that would be “good for all, and critical to preserve the open internet”. Thousands of Twitter users took to the platform to report problems with the site over the weekend, with complaints of inability in retrieving tweets, missing timelines and disappearing followers. Reports of outages began flooding Down Detector, peaking on Sunday and extending to Monday. The backlash started after Twitter declared on Saturday that verified accounts were being limited to reading 6,000 posts a day. Mr Musk later said “rate limits” were increasing to “8,000 for verified, 800 for unverified & 400 for new unverified”. He reasoned that the limits were being imposed to “address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation”. Many users expressed their frustration with the new move as they got a notification that said, “Sorry, you are rate limited. Please wait a few moments then try again”. Industry experts were also baffled at such a move by a social media company to put people off its platform, especially as Twitter has battled with retaining advertisers on the platform ever since Mr Musk took over last November. “Never have I seen a social network try so hard to put people off using a platform and to completely curtail any potential future for its business,” Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and industry analyst told PA, adding that the move was “yet another crazy decision by Elon Musk”. Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, said the new move could be “catastrophic” for Twitter’s ad business, that has already reeled from dwindling revenues. The company even roped in former NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino to be its new chief to repair relationships with advertisers who pulled away from the platform. The latest “reading limits”, according to Lou Paskalis, the founder of advertising consultancy AJL Advisory, “signals to the marketplace that he’s not capable of empowering her to save him from himself”. Mr Dorsey acknowledged that running Twitter was “hard”, adding that he trusted the team was “doing their best under the constraints they have”. “It’s easy to critique the decisions from afar... which I’m guilty of... but I know the goal is to see Twitter thrive. It will,” he said. It remains unclear how long the restrictions will last, as thousands continue to report about outages on the platform. Twitter did not reply to requests for comment as it had earlier this year changed its policy for interacting with reporters. Read More Twitter limits number of tweets people can read in a day, Elon Musk announces Pete Buttigieg blames severe weather for Fourth of July travel chaos Explosive devices and ‘Molotov cocktail-style object’ detonated in Washington DC Twitter limits number of tweets people can read in a day Heart transplant woman’s daughter twice saved her life using Alexa iPhone users urged to check their photo library amid fears they could be deleted

The former street gang leader charged with killing Tupac Shakur in 1996 in Las Vegas has lost his bid to hire the lawyer who spoke about his defense two weeks ago

Grayson Rodriguez allowed one hit over six innings, and the AL-best Baltimore Orioles clinched their second consecutive winning season with a 9-0 victory over the Chicago White Sox

Iran’s foreign minister has traveled to Saudi Arabia

Former No. 1 overall pick Baker Mayfield, now the likely starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has received for criticism ahead of the NFL season.We're not sure what Baker Mayfield did to receive the level of criticism he's gotten since coming into the league out of Oklaho...

A CEO has explained why he fired his colleague whose advice meant he didn't get on a 9/11 plane. On 11 September 2001, Bill Ellmore was booked to fly on United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco - one of the four flights hijacked by terrorists. But writing on Twitter, he explained how his co-worker told him to get another flight to save time - meaning he was spared from tragedy - only to get the sack. The CEO of Solomons Global Executive Services wrote: "I was booked on United Flight 93 on 9/11, 2001, flying nonstop from Newark NJ to San Francisco CA. Around midnight the night before, a coworker called me urging me to change my flight to fly into San Jose instead." He didn't want to change flights because he would have to give up his first class seat and the flight to San Jose left 20 minutes later with a stopover in Denver. However, his co-worker explained that the commute from San Francisco to Mountain View - where he was attending a meeting - would make him late for the meeting and traveling from San Jose would be much quicker. He continued: "When I got to the airport, I watched people boarding flight 93 and I was upset that I was not leaving earlier, in my 1st class seat on a direct flight," he said. "I didn’t notice or care about the people as they were boarding, only myself." He finally boarded his plane but as the flight was a few planes away from taking off, the pilot told passengers to look out the windows on the right side of the plane because it appeared the Twin Towers had been hit by a plane." They were grounded and Ellmore said the experience changed him. "I now take every opportunity to watch and if possible, get to know the people I’m boarding a plane with," he wrote. "I never hesitate to give up my seat for a later flight if requested. "I’ve had two children since 9/11 and went to multiple mission trips to war torn countries. Every day I wake up breathing is another gift from God." He finished his astonishing story with the words: "Never forget." So what happened to his co-worker? When asked about her, Ellmore responded: "Sad to say, I ultimately had to fire her for poor performance. It was difficult." He continued: "The reason I was originally booked on Flight 93 was due to her performance issues. These issues didn’t improve afterwards and I delayed letting her go until my boss insisted it happen." That's capitalism for you... Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Al Roker underwent a massive second knee replacement surgery and was seen using a cane to stand during the live broadcast of the ‘Today’ show a while ago

Former emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie's connection with Bath is being celebrated in a festival.

Eric Morgan was accused of handling the murder weapon allegedly used by his brother, Emonte, and was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon

Jaxson Dart threw for three touchdowns on three consecutive third-quarter series as No. 13 Mississippi used a strong second half to defeat Louisiana-Monroe 35-3

By Jonathan Stempel A judge dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Elon Musk that claimed he cheated Twitter

By Gloria Dickie LONDON Countries around the world from China to the United States are battling heatwaves, with