It seems that while Elon Musk is struggling to make his first payment on the massive deal that netted him Twitter, he’s found the time to screw over developers and users of the platform.
This isn’t in reference to the launch of Twitter Blue for Android or the new option that allows you to pay for Blue for a year. Instead, Twitter has changed its “developer agreement,” removing the ability for third-party clients to function.
This whole saga began last week after users of popular clients such as Tweetbot on iOS or Fenix on Android opened their apps of choice only to find that they weren’t functioning. Little did we know, the show was only getting started.
Surprisingly, for someone who voices their opinion as loudly as Musk, he did a wonderful job at going “radio silent” regarding anything related to third-party apps. This is the same person who has posted multiple polls about whether he should hire a new CEO or whether certain accounts should be unblocked.
“You will not or attempt to … use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.”
Twitter Developer Agreement
There’s already a mountain of uncertainty surrounding the platform, and third-party clients not functioning just adds another layer. Well, it seems that we finally have our answer, as Twitter has quietly updated the terms of its “developer agreement,” as spotted by Engadget.
It seems that the only change made to the agreement came from the “restrictions” section. Here, you’ll now find a clause that says “use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.”
So that’s it.
Third-party Twitter apps are practically dead and gone, and things will probably stay that way until Twitter is either acquired by another entity or Musk is out of the driver’s seat.
There’s definitely an argument to be made that third-party apps should have never become the “norm.” You can’t download a different app to use Facebook or Instagram, even before the latter was acquired by the former. But frankly, that’s a bullshit argument because having the ability to bypass all of Twitter’s nonsensical algorithms and app changes over the years, we’ve been able to continue enjoying the platform.
For the time being, it appears as though the “good days” or Twitter are gone for good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go dive deeper into Mastodon.
