A few days ago, TweetDeck users raised their hands to their heads when they realized they couldn’t use Twitter from there. It turned out that it was just a domain change and the platform is still working on a new one without any problems. However, before what was happening was discovered, some media echoed possible problems with the Twitter API. It turns out that they may have a point, albeit in other scenarios.
Why do we say it? Because for some unknown reason, now Twitter is not working with Tweetbot and other third-party apps, like Twitterific. Nobody gives reasons behind closed doors, but it could be due to a problem with their API.
Several Twitter clients are not working and no one knows why. A possible blockage?
The fact that a Twitter client fails is something that can happen at any time, but that several do so simultaneously is something worrying. And this is exactly what is happening with tweetbot, twitterrific and others like Flamingo, whose apps are not working properly. According to data provided by these same platforms, the origin of the problem could be in the Twitter API, which does not respond to requests from these clients.
Nevertheless, Twitter has not said anything about it, they have not said if they are investigatingnor notified if you introduced any changes to your API. The most curious thing about the case? There are clients that work perfectly, such as Fenix and Albatross, causing suspicion to grow like foam within the Twitter community.
On this, Paul Haddad, one of the creators of Tweetbot, published the following on Mastodon: «I hope what’s happening on Twitter is some automatic bot spam protection system that is incorrectly suspending applications. Unfortunately, I don’t have many contacts on Twitter anymore, so I doubt I’ll get a definitive answer anytime soon.”
Meanwhile, Sean Heber (from Twitterrific) did the same on his account: «we will have to give it some time and see if it is a real policy or just some kind of interruption. We don’t know more than anyone.” However, Heber goes a little further, explaining that Twitterrific for macOS continues to work without a problem, hinting at a possible crash.
In addition, this theory takes even more strength thanks to the users, who have revealed that the clients who are giving problems no longer appear in the list of connected apps to your accounts. What is really happening? At the moment only Twitter knows about it, but they have not declared about it and the rumors continue to increase.
Twitter’s story with third-party clients isn’t new, but it seems to be getting worse
Initially, Twitter was very open to letting other developers build clients for its platform. The Twitter API was available to anyone who wanted to use it, but since 2012 and version 1.1 things started to change. Since then, the war against Twitter clients startas they had to request permission to use the API if they needed more than 100,000 user files.
The result? Many third-party customers disappeared and the official client was positioned very well, but it was not sustainable. And yes, Twitter has made many improvements to the platform in recent years, but the growth has not been as expected. So much so, that Jack Dorsey (former CEO) himself recognized that closing the Twitter API was a bad idea, since it harmed the good health of this network.
In the last two years, the requirements of Twitter with its API have been relaxing a bit, something that had a positive impact. However, since the arrival of Elon Musk to the main chair, everything changed again and uncertainty became in the front row. Examples of it? The following:
- Since October 2022, the official Twitter API account it does not publish anything new so as to know if changes have been made and new requirements have been introduced.
- It’s known that Elon shut down a bunch of subservices within Twitter because he did not consider them necessary, but rather a waste of money.
- In December, Twitter decided to block all links pointing to Mastodon, an inexplicable tantrum despite being the competition.
- It is known that Elon is not taking criticism very well since it acquired Twitter, it has already blocked a lot of accounts for it.
- In the last weeks, Twitter policies have changed several timeswithout prior notice and regardless of who it will affect.
And so there are a handful of more examples that make it clear that things are not doing quite right within Twitter. Worst case? When you take the above, it is very difficult not to think about the darkest scenario: that of the blockade.
Hopefully not, but It is urgent that Twitter shed some light about what’s going on with your API and third-party clients.
