Twitter Makes It Official
In case there was any doubt about Twitter’s intentions in cutting off the developers of third-party apps, the company has quietly updated its developer agreement to make clear that app makers are no longer permitted to create their own clients.
The “restrictions” section of Twitter’s developer agreement was updated Thursday with a clause banning “use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.”
I don’t understand what this means for API users such as NetNewsWire that are not trying to create their own client. What counts as a substitute?
Via John Gruber:
It’s better to put it in writing and make it official, but it just makes Twitter’s claim two days ago that these terms were “longstanding” all the more absurd.
But, as much as it pains us to say it, Twitterrific for iOS and macOS have now been removed from both App Stores. If you had a subscription on iOS, it will be automatically cancelled by the App Store.
Finally, if you were subscriber to Twitterrific for iOS, we would ask you to please consider not requesting a refund from Apple. The loss of ongoing, recurring revenue from Twitterrific is already going to hurt our business significantly, and any refunds will come directly out of our pockets – not Twitter’s and not Apple’s.
While it is time for us to lay it to rest, a new bot will rise in its place and be greater than Tweetbot ever was. Built on an open and free platform, we are proud to introduce Ivory for Mastodon. We have taken everything great about Tweetbot and used it as the starting point for the future of Ivory. We have great plans to make Ivory better than Tweetbot ever could be.
See also: The Talk Show.
Previously:
- Reading Twitter and Mastodon in NetNewsWire
- Twitter Claims Apps Blocked for Violating API Rules
- Twitter API Down
- Ivory
Update (2023-01-25): Paul Haddad:
A batch of the smaller Twitter 3rd party clients has been banned over the last couple of days. I just can’t tell if they are doing it this way because they are trying to maximize FUD and minimize outrage. Or if they don’t have anyone left who knows how stuff works and are just doing searches for “xyz still works” and then blocking.
Update (2023-05-29): Andrew Logan:
Amir Shevat, Twitter’s former head of product for the developer platform, who lives in Round Rock, was responsible for ensuring that the tools Twitter provided independent software developers using the platform met their needs. He said about 17 percent of engagement on Twitter, historically, was through third-party apps, which played a vital role in defining Twitter’s identity.
[…]
A few days after Tweetbot and other third-party clients stopped working, Twitter retroactively updated its developer agreement with language that banned third-party clients. (When Texas Monthly reached out to Twitter via email for an interview on this story, Twitter replied with a poop emoji.) Experts speculate Musk killed third-party clients because they don’t contribute to ad revenue, which has declined as much as 89 percent since Musk purchased the company, according to Bloomberg.
Obviously the overwhelming number of Twitter users only ever used Twitter’s own first-party clients. The reason third-party clients were so important to Twitter, though, is that Twitter power users were drawn to them.
17% is actually much higher than I expected, especially after years of seeing many people dismiss third party apps as effectively just something that like 100 nerds used but don’t actually matter.
