{"id":22732,"date":"2023-04-07T02:11:12","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T02:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/577bd86b-dde0-4f74-b005-6c53cd54922f12"},"modified":"2023-04-07T02:11:12","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T02:11:12","slug":"twitter-shut-off-its-free-api-and-its-breaking-a-lot-of-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/twitter-shut-off-its-free-api-and-its-breaking-a-lot-of-apps\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter shut off its free API and it’s breaking a lot of apps"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Twitter has finally shut off its free API and, predictably<\/ins><\/span>, it\u2019s breaking a lot of apps and websites. The company had previously said it would cut off access in early February, but later delayed <\/ins><\/span>the move without providing an updated timeline.<\/p>\n

But, after announcing its new paid API tiers last week<\/ins><\/span>, the company seems to have started cutting off the thousands of developers relying on its free developer tools. Over the last couple days, a number of app makers and other services have reported that the Twitter API is no longer functioning. Mashable <\/em>reported<\/ins><\/span> the shutoff seems to have started Tuesday morning, though many developers are still trying to understand what\u2019s happening as Twitter doesn\u2019t seem to have communicated with most developers about the changes.<\/p>\n

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The ending of Twitter\u2019s free API comes after the company abruptly changed its rules to ban <\/ins><\/span>third-party Twitter clients as part of a larger shakeup of its developer strategy. But, as we\u2019ve previously reported<\/ins><\/span>, third-party clients were only a small fraction of the developers, researchers, bot makers and others who relied on Twitter\u2019s APIs.<\/p>\n

For example, apps and websites that used Twitter\u2019s API to enable sharing of content to and from Twitter are now seeing that functionality break. WordPress reported Tuesday that it was no longer able to access the API, rendering its websites unable to automatically share posts to Twitter. (The issue has since been fixed<\/ins><\/span>, according to the company.)<\/p>\n

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Our access to the Twitter API is currently blocked. As a result, Jetpack Social is temporarily unable to automatically share your posts directly from https:\/\/t.co\/eRvNKWaolr<\/span> to Twitter. We have reached out to Twitter for more information on how to get unblocked.<\/p>\n

\u2014 WordPress.com (@wordpressdotcom) April 4, 2023<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n

Likewise, Echobox, a service that allows publishers to share content on Twitter, said on Wednesday<\/ins><\/span> it was also disconnected from the Twitter API \u201cwithout warning.\u201d The company said it found a workaround, but hadn\u2019t heard from Twitter. News reading app Flipboard, which recently began shifting its focus to Mastodon<\/ins><\/span>, also warned that anyone who used Flipboard to view Twitter feeds would soon see the feature disabled.<\/p>\n

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Twitter, once a public square for ideas, is shutting off its API and closing its gates to other platforms, including Flipboard. Your Twitter feeds on Flipboard will be broken. You can look for replacement topic feeds by using search on Flipboard. 1\/2<\/p>\n

\u2014 Flipboard Support (@FlipboardCS) April 4, 2023<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n

Many of Twitter\u2019s bot developers are also impacted. The maker of \u201cCheap Bots Done Quick,\u201d which allows people to create bots for Twitter, reported receiving a notice that they were cut off <\/ins><\/span>from the API. Twitter has said that its new \u201cbasic\u201d tier is meant to provide a pathway to allow bots to continue, but many developers have said the monthly limit of 1,500 tweets is too constrained.<\/p>\n

Newsletter platform Substack is also having issues<\/ins><\/span> using embedded tweets<\/ins><\/span>, though it\u2019s unclear if this is related to the API shutdown or the company recently announcing a potential Twitter competitor<\/ins><\/span>. (Embeds seem to be functioning normally on other websites, including this one.)<\/p>\n

All of these issues are further complicated by the fact that Twitter seems to have communicated very little with any of its developers about these changes or what they mean. Most of the employees who worked in developer relations were cut during the company\u2019s mass layoffs. And the company\u2019s developer forums are filled<\/ins><\/span> with posts from confused developers looking for answers. The company no longer has a communications team, and its press email auto-responds with a poop emoji.<\/p>\n

As Mashable<\/em> points out<\/ins><\/span>, the shutoff has even affected developers who are<\/em> willing to pay for Twitter\u2019s API, even though pricing for higher-level enterprise tiers is still unclear. \u201cWhen Twitter announced these new tiers last week, we immediately sought to sign up for the Enterprise tier,\u201d Echobox wrote in a blog post<\/ins><\/span> on Wednesday. \u201c We still have had no response from Twitter\u2019s enterprise sales team and our access to the API was cut off without notice yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

News app Tweet Shelf said its API access had also been suspended <\/ins><\/span>despite applying for Enterprise API access. So did TweetDeleter<\/ins><\/span>, a service for automatically deleting tweets, and Tweet Archivist<\/ins><\/span> an analytics tool. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s still unclear how many developers will be able to continue using Twitter\u2019s API in some form. The free and $100\/month \u201cbasic\u201d tier are extremely limited<\/ins><\/span> compared to what was previously offered for free. And, while Twitter hasn\u2019t revealed exactly how much the \u201centerprise\u201d level will cost, many are expecting it to be prohibitively expensive \u2013 rumors have suggested<\/ins><\/span> it could cost $40,000 a month or more.<\/p>\n

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I am sad to announce that as of today, Social Bearing is no longer operational as our access to Twitter’s free API has been revoked<\/p>\n

The new free and basic API plans are far too limiting, and at ~$40k\/month, the enterprise tier is far too expensive to keep running pic.twitter.com\/wpGTTC8Lkp<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014 Social Bearing (@socialbearing) April 4, 2023<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n

Some developers aren\u2019t even waiting to find out the pricing details. The developer of Social Bearing, an analytics service used by researchers, said there was no way the service could continue to run. \u201cI wish those of you left at Twitter and fellow devs the best of luck,\u201d they tweeted.<\/ins><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter has finally shut off its free API and, predictably, it\u2019s breaking a lot of apps and websites. The company had previously said it would cut off access in early February, but later delayed the move without providing an updated timeline. But, after announcing its new paid API tiers last week, the company seems to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22732"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=22732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}