Twitter Cracks Down on API Abuse, Will Charge B2B Developers (techcrunch.com)

To prevent its own Cambridge Analytica moment and make sure it's getting paid for its data, Twitter said today it will audit developers that use its APIs. From a report: Starting June 19th, Twitter will require developers of any app that calls recent tweets from or mentions a user more than 100,000 times per day to submit their app for review. If a developer proves they have a legitimate consumer use case, like running a third-party Twitter client or doing research, they'll be granted free access to the API at the same rate they have today. If they primarily use the data to serve business customers as a B2B tool, like for customer service or social media monitoring, they'll have to pay to enter a commercial licensing agreement with Twitter with a custom price based on usage. Twitter refused to even specify the range those prices fall into, which won't win it any extra trust.

Developers found to be breaking Twitter's policies will be booted from the platform, while those that don't submit for review will be capped at 100,000 requests per day for the user timeline and mentions APIs. Twitter says it suspended 162,000 apps in the second half of 2018, showing it's willing to play hardball with developers that endanger its ecosystem.

Comments

Ban ALL republicans!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitter is for registered democrats ONLY. Fuck off everybody else!!

Twitter is retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Twitter

Re:Twitter is retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

As a retarded person, I find that offensive: I'm not stupid enough to use Twitter

Why is there an API at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but as a Twitter user I don't want anyone to be able to pull content I've put in, except for the website. Scrapers be scrapin, but why does Twitter have to make it so easy to them to offer APIs.

Re:Why is there an API at all

[Anonymous Coward]

If you actually cared, you wouldn't use twitter. What you post on Twitter is public data, and public data can be used in any form or fashion without your consent.

Re:Why is there an API at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you publishing things on the public internet that you don't want to be public?

Twitter needs to be investigated for bias.

[Anonymous Coward]

If only our DOJ, FTC and attorney general weren't useless.

Notice they won't charge A2M users

[Anonymous Coward]

That's their bread and butter.

More bias from old Jack "Ass 2 Mouth" Dorsey.

API abuse?

[Virtucon]

How can you call any use of an API that you published as abuse? If you do, you're doing it wrong.

Re:API abuse?

[Gravis Zero]

How can you call any use of an API that you published as abuse?

By violating the intention of the publication of the API. The intention here was to enable to user applications to post to and read Twitter. Abuse would be harvesting all of the information posted to Twitter.

If you do, you're doing it wrong.

Poppycock! Anyone can abuse an interface. Take for a second to consider HTTP. With HTTP if you have millions of computers request pages repeatedly from a single server while discarding the result you can deny other people the ability to access the page as well as drive up the cost of hosting the page.

What is the proper solution in the case of HTTP? Only serve content to known and trusted computers that request it? That solution subverts the entire purpose of the Internet.

Re:API abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

A food sample stand is not a place to get dinner.

Re:API abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

In poorer days, Costco was my Saturday lunch ticket.

Proof enough we don't need government sponsored charities when private organizations already provide them.

Re:API abuse?

[Virtucon]

Ever hear of throttling? If you write an API to consume bulk data like this unintentionally or you allow API consumers to beat the shit out of your service layer than then change the API or your infrastructure! If you publish an API that circumvents your policies then you're a dipshit for publishing it in the first place or your stakeholder alignment is fucked.

Re:API abuse?

[Gravis Zero]

Ever hear of throttling?

Isn't that exactly what this is?

Re:API abuse?

[Virtucon]

Throttling and Abuse has to be a paramount concern in public APIs, it needs to be mitigated and thought out from the beginning. Shit I see it enough in enterprise APIs and it's much worse.

Re:API abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're a complete dipshit.

Re:API abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

When end users violate the terms they agreed to in order to be granted use of said API. (Which are pretty much at Twitter's sole discretion, since it's their system)

Of course, you can call Twitter out for failing to enforce the terms and indirectly benefiting from bad things being done with said API.

That's what Facebook is guilty of.

Re:API abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah again. It is your fault to give out [insert_whatever] to the public regardless anyone can misuse it. Great concept... I hope one day you intentionally did good something for someone (but I doubt it that you could), and then the person twists what you did to harm you. That's the exact concept you have.

Break up Twitter

[WCMI92]

They have got to be broken up along with Google and Facebook.

Re:Break up Twitter

[Anonymous Coward]

lol I broke up your mom last night

Trust

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitter refused to even specify the range those prices fall into, which won't win it any extra trust.

Why would Twitter care about trust? They've judged this is the way for them to make the most fast money so they are going with it.

LOL but that is short sighted/quote

The people who run Twitter aren't worried about anything other that making the most money possible, and fast. If things go bad, and they will eventually no matter what Twitter does, they'' pull the cords on their golden parachutes and come to a nice soft landing in a pile of money at some other tech company.

Let me fix that headline for ya...

[fortythirteen]

Google to charge B2B developers for API access, uses Cambridge Analytica as an excuse

Re:Let me fix that headline for ya...

[Ksevio]

1. Twitter, not Google.
2. TechCrunch added the part about Cambridge Analytica - Twitter mainly said they want more money and they don't want other companies making money off their data without paying for it

Re: Blow up Twitter

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot faster that way. Blame al-Qaeda. Fake news loves that.

No, dummy.

[Gravis Zero]

[Twitter has] got to be broken up along with Google and Facebook.

I would be OK with breaking up Alphabet (since they are so diverse) but don't break up Facebook/Twitter. Instead, force their sites to support a cross-site API that allows people to migrate away while still being able to interface with people on Facebook/Twitter. It's a proven tactic that worked quite well with AOL Instant Messenger.

The fact that you want the FTC to bust up social media platforms but don't seem to give a rat's ass about banks is very telling. You only really seem to care about being able to act like asshole online.

So not fixing Nazis or adding Edit

[WillAffleckUW]

Riight ...

"B2B?"

[Anonymous Coward]

What does that acronym mean?

Re:"B2B?"

[jtmach]

Business to Business. So some company scraping the data to sell to another company. Twitter would rather sell direct to the end user.