(Republicaninformer.com)- Third-party apps that want to use data from Twitter are going to have to start paying for it.
Developers will now have to pay to get access to the Twitter API, which many popular services such as TweetDelete and other bots use to send users notifications on various data in real time.
Twitter announced that starting February 9, the platform would “no longer support free access to the Twitter API.” Any service that wants to use the API would have to pay for the basic tier in order to continue using the service.
Late Wednesday, Twitter sent an official tweet that read:
“Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion Tweets, with billions more every week. Twitter data are among the world’s most powerful data sets. We’re committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us.”
Musk himself responded to that tweet, saying that the “free API is being abused right now by bot scammers & opinion manipulations. There’s no verification process or cost, so easy to spin up 100k bots to do bad things.”
He also added that it will cost $100 per month to get access to the API, which will require verification via ID, and that “will clean things up greatly,” he tweeted.
An API is a piece of software that’s used by third-party companies to access specific data from various applications. They then use that data to create new services.
Twitter has an API that has both a paid and free version, and it’s currently used by developers all over the world to power things such as sending notifications any time a specific Twitter account changes or allowing users to set reminders for themselves.
Researchers also use the Twitter API to track misinformation and hate speech that’s being spread on the platform.
Dataminr is a newsgathering service that uses the Twitter API, and that allows journalists to get alerts on information that appears on Twitter as it’s happening.
In the past, Twitter has blocked certain third-party software programs such as Twitterrific and Tweetboth from using the API. Some developers and users have complained that some of these third-party software apps have become unusable.
This is another move by Musk, apparently, to generate new revenue for the company. He instituted a paid Twitter Blue program, which replaced the free verification process the company used to have.
He also instituted major job cuts at the company to reduce costs. About half of its total workforce across the globe was laid off not long after Musk took over the company.
Musk is hoping to turn Twitter profitable, especially since he spent $44 billion to purchase the social media company.
All of these changes are moves in that direction, and it’s very likely that Musk is going to implement more changes like this in the future to try to monetize the platform.
