Tag: API

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Mobile Syrup

Elon Musk says bots with ‘good content’ will get free Twitter API access

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has partially walked back plans to charge for access to Twitter’s API, although as always the details remain unclear.

In a series of tweets on February 2nd, Musk claimed Twitter’s free API was being “abused badly right now by bot scammers & opinion manipulators,” and suggested charging around $100 USD (about $134 CAD) per month and performing ID verification would “clean things up greatly.”

The following day, Musk tweeted about potentially giving verified (read: Blue ‘Verified’ users, not legacy verified) users access to the API, and then on February 4th came back to the ongoing thread to say: “Responding to feedback, Twitter will enable a light, write-only API for bots providing good content that is free.”

While the backtrack will be good for some, details remain sparse. Case in point: what constitutes “providing good content?” Will Musk have final say in which bots get free API access and which have to pay? Will it apply to future bots, or just the ones that currently exist? These and other questions will need to wait until we see an official announcement from Twitter since, for now, Musk’s tweets fail to offer pertinent details.

This all comes after Twitter announced plans to remove free access to its API on February 9th and instead charge for access. The plan was met with frustration from developers and researchers who rely on the free API, particularly those who used it to build helpful tools available for free to users.

Several developers announced plans to shutter these bots ahead of the February 9th deadline, but this change could save some of the tools, assuming they meet Musk’s “good content” requirement and the light API is sufficient for what the bots need to work.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out and whether Twitter’s push to get developers to pay for API access will help Musk escape the mountain of debt tied to him and his new social media company.

Source: @elonmusk Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Some games warn Twitter API changes could lock players out

If you use Twitter to log into any important services, games, or other stuff, you may want to set up alternate login methods. Twitter’s upcoming API changes may break your ability to log in with Twitter.

At least, that’s the warning from two popular online games. Genshin Impact and Arknights (spotted by The Verge) both shared warnings on Twitter that gamers should change their logins just in case.

Genshin Impact tweeted that it’s ” in the process of confirming the impact of the Twitter API adjustments on game account login” and suggested in a follow-up that customers link their email address to their HoYoverse account to avoid login problems.

Similarly, Arknights tweeted that players should bind their game accounts to a Yostar account in case of issues stemming from Twitter’s API change. (I particularly enjoyed the perplexing image tweeted in response to the warning).

These warnings come after Twitter announced plans to remove the free tier of its API and start charging for access. It remains unclear if the adjustment will impact login services like this, but given how Elon Musk’s previous rash changes impacted Twitter, better safe than sorry.

Source: Genshin Impact, Arknights Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Several third-party Twitter clients not working amid API issues

Several third-party Twitter clients are experiencing issues after Twitter’s third-party API went dark. It remains unclear what’s going on as so far, neither Twitter nor new owner and CEO Elon Musk have said anything about the issues.

The issues started around 10:30pm ET on January 12th and continued into the morning of January 13th.

Moreover, the problems appear to affect different apps in different ways. Some apps, like Tweetbot, report that all API requests from the app fail. Other developers report their apps show up as ‘suspended’ in Twitter’s developer portal. And still, other apps appear to be unaffected — Android Police notes relatively new client Harpy seems to be working, and in my testing, desktop client Tweeten seems to be working just fine (although it’s based on TweetDeck, which could explain why it still works).

For those unfamiliar with Twitter’s third-party API, it enables third-party clients (apps not made by Twitter itself) to access the platform. These clients were quite popular in the early days of Twitter since they often had more (or better) features than Twitter’s own mobile app. However, over the years, Twitter has changed and restricted aspects of the API, and there has been something of a fall-off in terms of using third-party clients.

While there are still plenty of people using third-party clients, for many, the additional hassle of third-party clients often wasn’t worth it. From my experience, third-party Twitter clients were some of my favourite apps, but it eventually became too difficult to use them effectively. Aside from Tweeten, which I mentioned above, I basically use the first-party Twitter app now.

Hopefully, the issues currently impacting third-party Twitter clients result from a change or update to the API and not because, as some have speculated, Twitter wants to kill third-party clients entirely. However, it remains to be seen how this all plays out.

Source: @mttvll (Fenix developer), Tweetbot Via: Android Police, TechCrunch, The Verge