Twitter has updated its developer policy and has banned third-party Twitter clients.
We reported last week that Twitter might have banned the third-party apps on its platform, but we weren’t sure about the ban then. Twitter was silent about this issue. Now it is official with the change in developer agreement for the Twitter.
This is the new clause made in the developer agreement: “You will not or attempt to (and will not allow others to)…use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.”
However, Twitter Dev posted something else as an update two days back about this:
Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules. That may result in some apps not working.
— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) January 17, 2023
Twitter’s claim that the rule was a “longstanding” API rule doesn’t make sense. Third-party Twitter clients have been an integral part of Twitter. Twitterrific, an iOS client who stopped working last week, has been available on App Store even before Twitter had an official Twitter app for iPhone.
Twitter third-party clients like Twitterrific, Fenix, Tweet bot and Albatross have a dedicated user base in recent years, as it doesn’t come with Twitter’s ads and has additional features not found in the native app.
The developers of these third-party apps weren’t informed of the decision to remove them from the platform beforehand; they were merely informed that their apps were suspended without stating a reason.
Even though Twitter hasn’t provided any official reason for throwing out Twitter clients, it might be related to ads. Third-party Twitter apps allow you to browse without ads. This causes revenue loss to Twitter, and as Twitter is facing a financial crunch, we can see it as an attempt to bring more revenue to the platform.