Twitter’s development team announced last week that free access to its API will be halted from February 9. Days before the deadline, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that, after feedback, Twitter will enable a light, write-only API for bots providing good content that is free.
On February 3, Musk replied to @PepitoTheCat’s tweet (which said that blocking free access to API would ‘kill its account’), stating, “I guess we could give all Verified users access to the API for posts like this.”
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Free API is abused by bot scammers and opinion manipulators, Musk previously said, adding that “just ~$100/month for API access with ID verification” would clean things up on Twitter.
A report by TechCrunch noted that while the definition of “good content” remains loose, some bots will “get a new lifeline,” if Twitter goes through with the new rule.
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