Some popular accounts are likely to disappear from Twitter when Elon Musk ends free API access | Twitter

The latest set of changes to Twitter is likely to spell the end of some of your favorite accounts, tools and features, as platform owner Elon Musk continues to look for ways to increase revenue.

In a post on Thursday morning, the Twitter developer account announced that free access to its application programming interface (API) would be cut and replaced with a paid version starting February 9.

The API provides access to Twitter data, which can be used to build third-party applications, automated bots, customer service tools for brands, and allows researchers to report trends or patterns on the site.

While many larger companies already pay for access, some of the smaller developers of popular tools and accounts are unlikely to be able or willing to pay.

Here’s a rundown of some popular tools and accounts that might be gone once the Pay-Per-Access API goes live.

thread readers

When someone posts a long thread of tweets on a topic, often someone @ the thread reader app, which will render the content of those tweets in a more readable format.

Opossum photos every hour

Many automated accounts are created for fun, such as those that tweet photos or artwork at regular intervals.

Sadly, the Possum Every Hour account has already announced that it will cease operations once the changes are introduced, but says its work will continue on Twitter’s rival network, Mastodon.

Automatic removal services

Twitter lacks a feature that allows you to delete your tweets en masse or automatically, so third-party apps that use the Twitter API have filled that gap.

Many of them charge, which suggests they may already be paying Twitter for API access, but the changes could spell doom for others.

Climate, environment and health trackers

Earthquake bots and other accounts set up to post automatic updates about the weather, the environment, or health issues like Covid can be extremely helpful. They usually work by pulling data from other sites and automatically tweeting it using the Twitter API.

They are often run on a voluntary and not-for-profit basis, so they might also run into problems after changes.

Brand customer service accounts

If you’re a social media manager at a large company, you can use Hootsuite or a similar platform to monitor company social accounts and track customer complaints. That also depends on the Twitter API.

The first hint that Twitter would clamp down on API use came in mid-January, when Twitter suddenly shut down access to Tweetbot, a third-party Twitter app optimized for Apple products. The move was not initially explained, but the company later said it was following a longstanding policy.

Twitter’s move to charge for API access is the latest in a series of changes Elon Musk has made since taking over the company in an effort to make it profitable.

Twitter has not said how much it will charge for basic API access, nor has it indicated whether the charge will apply to all API users, including researchers.

Twitter no longer has a communications department to approach for comment, but questions were sent to the email address the organization previously used to respond to inquiries from the press.