Twitter policy change reveals why third-party clients are dead
Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms around. It caters to millions of users through the website, mobile apps, and abunch of third-party Twitter clients. At least, that was the case until January 12 when a thenseemingly accidental shutdownof Twitter’s third-party API took place. Now, the platform has announced a change in its terms for developers, effectively sealing the fate of the now-defunct third-party clients.
Third-party clients like Tweetbot, Fenix, Twitterrific, Talon, and more offered users a unique user experience and a few additional features the original app couldn’t provide. However, Twitter’s recent shutdown of the third-party API left many developers without an answer for over a week, until now.EngadgetreportsTwitter’s developer agreementdocumentation has been silently amended to prohibit the creation of third-party clients permanently going forward. The clause specifically bans the “use or access of the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.”
The clarification comes just days after Twitter’s developer account tweeted that it is enforcing “long-standing API rules.” At the time, the platform refused to answer people specifically asking “which rules” were violated. We wonder why the document was amended now if the rules have been around for years, as Twitter claimed. Developers affected by this sudden turn of events haven’t heard from Twitter about these changes through official channels. Here’s whatTwitterrific’s Sean Heberhad to say about the sudden end of his 16-year-old app that had been around since Twitter had an official app on iOS:
“We are sorry to say that the app’s sudden and undignified demise is due to an unannounced and undocumented policy change by an increasingly capricious Twitter — a Twitter that we no longer recognize as trustworthy nor want to work with any longer.
“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.
“Any refunds will come directly out of our pockets — not Twitter’s and not Apple’s. To put it simply, thousands of refunds would be devastating to a small company like ours.”
Like Twitterrific, many independent developers are now pulling their apps from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store or mulling over doing so. Customers are being promised refunds, at a great personal cost to developers. Some developers, like Heber, have other apps and their revenue to cushion their fall, but others don’t.
Although the company seems to have sealed the fate of third-party clients for now, we wouldn’t be surprised if the affected developers push back with a class-action suit criticizing the suddenness of the change, or something similar. After all, Musk’s Twitter yanked the floor from beneath their feet without warning and changed the developer agreementaftersaying the rules have been around for years.
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