In a move that has sparked controversy across the developer and technologist communities, Twitter appears to have cut off access to third-party apps such as Twitterrific and Tweetbot.
By cutting off access to its API, Twitter limits developers’ ability to offer alternative ways to access the platform.
This change may affect those who rely on third-party apps for their daily Twitter content.
While it’s unclear why Twitter made such drastic changes to its API access policy, a report from the information It is suggested that it is no accident.
Erin Wu, a reporter at The Information, writes:
In the day and a half since users began reporting problems with the apps, neither the official Twitter account nor the Twitter support account has explained the cause of the outage, including whether it was intentional or accidental. Musk also did not comment on his Twitter account.
But a senior software engineer wrote Thursday night that “the suspension of third-party applications is intentional” in the Slack channel of Twitter’s internal command center, which employees use to handle outages and outages of Twitter’s services. The engineer declined to comment when contacted by The Information on Saturday afternoon.
Although no official communication has been given to developers or users, many speculate that the decision to restrict API access was motivated by a desire to increase revenue.
Third-party apps make less money from ads on Twitter. Forcing people to use the official Twitter app can increase ad impressions and make it a more attractive platform for advertisers.
Additionally, directing more users to the official app will likely drive subscriptions to Twitter Blue, which is not available for purchase on third-party apps.
Regardless of the reasoning behind the decision, Twitter is hurting relationships with developers and users alike.
Giving third-party developers access to the Twitter API is beneficial to users because they are often able to create tools that are more efficient and easy to use than those available through Twitter itself.
Moreover, allowing API access can help stimulate innovation and creativity within the industry, leading to more advanced technologies and better services.
The fact that this change came without warning strained relations with the developers, with some vowing not to continue working on their app if access to the API was restored.
Craig Hockenberry, Developer TwitterrificHe writes in his book Blog:
“What bothers me about Twitterrific’s last day is that it wasn’t decent. There was no advance notice to its creators, customers got a weird error, and no one to explain what’s going on. We didn’t get a chance to thank the customers who’ve been with us for over a decade…
Personally, I’m done. And with a vengeance.”
Matteo Villa is a developer Fenix for iOSHe says he’s considering pulling his app from the App Store
And I’m honestly considering pulling Fenix for iOS from the App Store.
People are still downloading it, and who knows if and when it will stop working.– Matteo Villa (mttvll) January 15, 2023
Paul Haddad, co-founder tweet botwrites in a mail Mastodon is supposed to move to “smaller but greener pastures”.
If you’ve been waiting for your favorite third-party Twitter app to come back online, you can’t tell if that will ever happen.
As Twitter has laid off its public relations and communications team, a representative for the company could not be reached for comment.
Featured image: Postmodern Studio/Shutterstock
