Final week, Twitter stated it’s shutting down free entry to its APIs beginning February 9. Now, days earlier than the deadline, Elon Musk stated that after getting suggestions from builders, Twitter will present a write-only API for “bots offering good content material that’s free.”
This resolution is as opaque as a number of the different coverage selections beneath Musk’s administration. There is no such thing as a data on what constitutes “good content material” and who will determine that. Nonetheless, if Twitter finally ends up implementing this rule, some bots will get a brand new lifeline on the social community.
Beforehand, Twitter shuttered API entry to third-party purchasers saying they broke a “long-standing rule” with none specification. Then the corporate silently up to date its developer phrases to mirror that app can’t “use or entry the Licensed Supplies to create or try to create a substitute or comparable service or product to the Twitter Purposes.”
Following the announcement, lots of builders who made enjoyable of bots criticized the decision saying that their automation supplied free content material to folks and in flip enhanced the companies. Final week, Buzzfeed interviewed a number of bot builders who have been sad with the choice. These embody @_restaurant_bot which tweets random photographs of eating places and @_weather_bot_which tweets pictures of various locations with climate updates.
In the intervening time, it’s not clear if accounts like @BigTechAlert, which tweets about huge tech execs and organizations following and unfollowing one another, will probably be eligible for this free tier as they could have to scan account data.
Darius Kazemi, a developer who has made over 80 bots and even organized a bot devs summit in 2016, informed TechCrunch over a name that these automated accounts have been an integral a part of Twitter for years. He stated that a few of these bots with 1000’s of followers convey pleasure to many individuals each day.
He talked about that it could be pricey to take care of these bots who’re offering free content material to the platform
“I’ve greater than 80 bots on Twitter so it could take me a number of thousand {dollars} to maintain them up yearly and I can’t afford that form of cash,” he stated.
Musk has been attempting to generate extra income for Twitter with strikes like a brand new pricey subscription plan and ramping up advert cash. He additionally plans to indicate adverts in replies to share income with creators. Whereas the small print on how this may work are skinny, the Twitter CEO stated that solely Blue Subscribers can earn this money. So it’s doubtless that content material bots received’t earn cash even when adverts are displayed on their accounts or in replies beneath their tweets.
Twitter’s free API discontinuation doesn’t simply have an effect on bot builders. There are tons of pupil builders and hate speech or misinformation researchers who may not have a price range to pay a month-to-month charge. Twitter’s v2 API had particular entry for lecturers however that may not be the case beneath the brand new API guidelines.
Builders have additionally pointed out that lots of bots spreading spam don’t use truly use the official API. So the corporate’s intention to close down free API to weed out spam may not work effectively.
