Twitter Brings Back Free API Access To Government Institutions for Alerts

Twitter’s decision to cut down its free API adversely affected public institutions that rely on the functionality. The firm is ready to return its decision to only verified government-owned businesses.

The social network has reinstated free access for recognized government and publicly-owned services that tweet for “critical purposes”, including emergency warnings, transport updates, and weather alerts.

In March, the social media giant Twitter announced a three-tier pricing scheme for its API. Free access is typically reserved for bots and testers who merely need to make posts.

It can be restrictive for authors who want frequent updates because it only enables 1,500 tweets each month and one app ID. Standard access is $100 per month, with fixed tweet limits.

Whereas businesses require multiple-level tiers to meet their needs, costing them up to tens of thousands of dollars per month.

This decision impacted numerous applications and services, including Flipboard’s reader, that depended on the free API for sharing and content streams. Developers who were willing to pay for access, like Echobox, also ran into problems.

In contrast, Government services were particularly hard hit. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York City said that it would discontinue publishing service announcements on Twitter after being hit with a $50,000 per month access fee.

Microsoft also removed Twitter from its social media advertisers’ tool and disabled Twitter screenshot sharing for Xbox gamers and Windows.

Because of Elon Musk’s direction, Twitter has implemented restrictions on formerly free features to increase control over the user experience and generate more revenue from subscriptions.