Elon Musk’s Twitter Pledges Free Write-Only API Access To Bots Creating “Good” Content
Twitter has had a rough few months ever since being purchased by Elon Musk for $43 billion. Just last week, Twitter stated it would be shutting down free access to its APIs from February 9th onward. On the topic of the free API being abused, Elon tweeted on the 2nd of February:
Yeah, free API is being abused badly right now by bot scammers & opinion manipulators. There's no verification process or cost, so easy to spin up 100k bots to do bad things.
Just ~$100/month for API access with ID verification will clean things up greatly."
After this, Musk has come to the decision to provide a write-only API for bots providing good content that is free." Unfortunately, Musk has not commented on what makes good" content, or who will be in charge of deciding what bots get this privilege.
All of this happened after Twitter shuttered API access for 3rd parties, claiming they've broken an unspecified Twitter rule. Afterward, Musk's Twitter updated its terms to state 3rd party apps can't use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications." Unfortunately, this has led to many bots being endangered, as many of them need to scan account information, or access other licensed materials on Twitter.
Musk has been vying for ways to increase Twitter's revenue ever since he purchased the company, with controversial moves like re-launching Twitter Blue at a higher price for Apple users, unbanning controversial figures, and firing thousands of contractors spearheading this motion.
The Impact of Blocking API AccessThe decision to provide free write-only API access to quality bots may seem favorable at first, however, many bot creators are concerned. Keeping Twitter bots up can cost a substantial amount of money, and since these projects generally make little, if any money, developers will have to pay for API access themselves.
Musk has recently unveiled plans to show ads in replies in order to help creators (but only ones subscribed to Twitter Blue) make money on the platform. However, it's unclear how this is going to work, and if bots will even have this privilege in the first place.
Bots, however, aren't the only ones affected by this change. Development students and researchers also used to be provided special access to the Twitter v2 API, letting them collect and analyze data on subjects such as misinformation, hate speech, and more. Unfortunately, this may not continue under the new API ruleset.
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