Third-party apps using the popular microblogging site’s API lost access to Twitter last week. Users were unable to access their accounts on third party Twitter apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific. Amid claims by developers that Elon Musk’s own platform intentionally blocked their apps, Twitter has now issued a statement saying it has intentionally revoked access for third-party apps. In a brief tweet Tuesday, the official TwitterDev account (@TwitterDev) said the site was enforcing its “longstanding API rules.”
the tweet added that the move might cause some apps not to work. However, the Twitter dev account didn’t elaborate on what its longstanding API rules were or why the site decided to enforce them now.
However, the tweet confirmed what third-party developers had already suspected — apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific didn’t lose access to Twitter due to a bug, but were instead blocked by the microblogging site from intentionally using its API. An API is a software interface that enables communication between two or more programs. All Twitter Third-party clients use the Twitter API to access the service.
Twitter’s confirmation comes after the Tweetbot developers denounced the platform’s silence on the blocked access. Tweetbot co-creator Paul Haddad had said in a mastodon post Office that he has not received any communication from anyone on Twitter, either officially or unofficially. Tweetbot initially lost access, along with Twitterrific, and the former briefly resumed work on Sunday when developers exchanged its API keys, only to be blocked again.
Haddad, in a mastodon post Office also responded to Twitter’s vague confirmation, saying: “I would like to publicly apologize to Twitter for violating their longstanding API rule ___.”
according to a report Earlier this week, Twitter’s internal Slack communication mentioned that the site had intentionally revoked third-party access. As mentioned earlier, Twitter has yet to clarify which rules the popular third-party apps have broken.
