Twitter acknowledges consciously shutting down third-party apps from API

Twitter confirms on its own platform that there was a deliberate action when it emerged a few days ago that third-party apps that use Twitter’s API were closed. The company does not provide further explanation.

Twitter says only that it ‘enforces long-standing API rules’ and that may mean that some apps will no longer work. This makes it clear that there is a deliberate blocking of third-party apps such as Twitterific and Tweetbot.

The social media company does not provide further explanation. There is also no reference to the specific rules on the basis of which Twitter took this step. Partly because of this, it is also unclear why, for example, certain smaller third-party apps still function.

Twitter’s confirmation follows reports from developers of Twitter apps that encountered problems since last Friday. They indicated that they were experiencing problems logging in and they were already pointed to Twitter’s API. Many of the better known apps are offline.

The Information recently pointed out internal Twitter communications that the medium has seen. This revealed that there was no malfunction, but the closure of access to the API. A developer of Tweetbot suggested although it was a deliberate action, because changing the API keys caused the app to function briefly again.

Twitter once provided broad and free access to the API, but that situation ended more than ten years ago. The company makes less or no money from users of third-party clients, partly because some apps do not display advertisements.