Twitter Officially Bans Third-Party Clients As Twitterrific Shuts Down – Twitter has discreetly revised its developer agreement to exclude third-party clients, such as Tweetbot and Twitterrific, nearly a week after the company began restricting their access. According to Engadget, the company modified the agreement on Thursday to prohibit third-party developers from utilizing Twitter’s licensed materials to “create a substitute or similar service.”
The revised agreement does not appear to provide an explanation for Twitter’s decision. Under new owner Elon Musk, however, the social media site has prioritized profit through paid services and advertisement creation. Third-party clients, such as Tweetbot and Twitterrific, can eliminate advertisements from a user’s feed.
People Also Read: Twitter Planning to Sell Usernames to Boost Revenue
The software publisher IconFactory announced on the same day that it was terminating Twitterrific, calling it the end of an era. In a blog post, the business attributed the shutdown to Twitter’s sudden policy change last week to restrict third-party clients’ access to its API. IconFactory has therefore removed Twitterrific from the iOS and Mac App Stores.
“Twitter’s unexplained revocation of our API access has left the app with no path forward,” the company added in a tweet. Twitter has only commented on the controversy with a vague statement on Tuesday that implied the third-party clients were in violation of the company’s API policy. “Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules.”
“That may result in some apps not working,” the company’s Twitter Dev account said at the time. However, the company never specified which rule had been violated. Therefore, none of the third-party clients could resolve the issue. Twitter’s action on Thursday to change its developer agreement shows that no rule was broken; rather, the business has opted to effectively eliminate all third-party clients.
People Also Read: Twitter Bans Linking to Facebook, Instagram, Other Rivals
Hence, the new policy almost certainly means an end to other third-party clients such as Tweetbot, which need access to Twitter’s API to function. In response to the change, Tweetbot’s co-creator Paul Haddad wrote on Mastodon: “I guess I didn’t realize long standing actually means a couple hours ago, once again I’m deeply sorry.”
