Twitter boss Elon Musk isn't done bringing changes to Twitter yet. After he charged users with Blue subscription fees, now it's the bot accounts' turn to be affected.
On Wednesday, Twitter began charging $100 per month for a basic level of access to Twitter's application programming interface (API). It is used by developers and researchers to analyze public tweets.
According to the company, this change is scheduled for February 13th. Twitter is expected to end the free version of its API on February 9th.
The move drew widespread criticism. For example, researchers have used the Twitter API to study sentiment about Covid-19 and mental health. In addition, developers have created automated accounts known as bots to regularly tweet song lyrics, cat photos and weather updates.
There are many bot accounts on Twitter, such as the account @PossumEveryHour which already has 579k followers. “Depending on how it's handled, the bot may stop working for some time,” said @PossumEveryHour in a tweet.
Quoted by CNET, Thursday (9/2/2023), charging bot accounts is another way for Twitter to make more money apart from ad revenue. Previously, Musk said that Twitter would make changes because the company's free API was abused by bot scammers and opinion manipulators.
“This is a new chapter for Twitter APIs to improve quality, reduce spam, and enable a thriving ecosystem,” said Musk.
The Independent Technology Research Coalition issued a letter urging Twitter to make the API accessible to researchers, journalists and others conducting public interest research.
“These restrictions will disrupt the important project of thousands of journalists, academics and civil society actors around the world who study some of the most important issues impacting our society today,” the letter said.
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