All the conjectures and rumours around Twitter banning third party clients finally come true. The social media company has updated it developer rules to ban third-party clients nearly a week after services like Tweetbot and Twitterrific were denied access to its API. The new rules say that any third-party client cannot use or access the licensed materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.
“Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules. That may result in some apps not working,” Twitter posted this two days ago acknowledging the outage but it did not give any information on these API rules. The company has now updated its Developer Platform page with updated information on the “Developer Agreement.
Twitter makes it clear that Twitter Developer Agreement is made between an entity and Twitter and governs former’s access to and use of licensed material.
“Your use of Twitter’s websites, SMS, APIs, email notifications, applications, buttons, embeds, ads, and our other covered services is governed by our general Terms of Service and Privacy Policy,” reads Twitter’s blog post.
The updated Developer Agreement gives third-party clients access to “certain non-public information, software, and specifications relating to the Licensed Material which is confidential and proprietary to Twitter.” The Musk-led company states that this information should be used only as necessary in exercising rights granted in this agreement.
Developers were left in dark when the third-party clients like Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and few more such services were shut access to Twitter’s API two week ago. Several developers and users highlighted that Twitter never told them exactly which API rules were being broken or violated.
“Finally some clarity we apparently broke the long standing rule of “use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications”. I guess I didn’t realize long standing actually means a couple hours ago, once again I’m deeply sorry,” founder of Tapbots- Paul Haddad- wrote on his Mastodon account after mocking Twitter for sharing no information on the API rules.
For general users who use one of these third-party apps, the issue will be resolved only when the developers agree to the agreement and make required changes in their service.
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