MTN to end free Twitter, users go crazy

Cellular giant MTNhas announced that it will stop offering customers free Twitter usage on midnight this coming Tuesday.

“After providing free Twitter to millions of subscribers for an unprecedented four years, MTN’s industry-first free Twitter service will come to an end at midnight on 25 September,” a statement issued by the company said.

READ MORE: MTN denies claims it owes a R117 billion refund

Twitter users immediately came up with the hashtag #RIPFreeTwitter, voicing their feelings about the change, as well as the hashtag #MyLastWordsToFreeTwitter which saw MTN subscribers flex their senses of humour.

Popular parody account @AdvBarryRoux was among those who weighed in.

https://twitter.com/AdvBarryRoux/status/1043429264564125697

https://twitter.com/kay_mosala/status/1043452587637448704

https://twitter.com/sharepart/status/1043452160464351233

#MyLastWordsToFreeTwitter Facebook Coach is here to transport you back to Facebook Village R35 per person + free Drink 🍹 & free entertainment you can call us 0718640390 pic.twitter.com/Gom9jhgp4f

— Andile (@Djandy_kay) September 22, 2018

According to MyBroadband, MTN said it had over 13 million Twitter users on its network in August 2018, with 1.9 petabytes of data being used on the network per month.

“Overall usage trends towards video and images have determined that it is no longer feasible to offer a service like Twitter for free due to the cost and demand it places on the network.”

This comes after the major cell-phone service provider recently placed a 500MB usage cap on its free Twitter offering, claiming that exploitation by hackers had pushed them to make the change.

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