On 15 Nov 2021, Twitter Inc. announced that it’ll expand free access to its networking site’s data for helping software developers create tools and products that would promote safer online conversations or curate content.
During an interview, Amir Shevat, Twitter’s head of product for the developer platform, stated that the move is part of Twitter’s growing effort over the past year to decentralize the company. It is a vision that aims to offer users more control over what content they see in their Twitter feed or have new ways of sharing content on the location. The effort towards increasing developer access also comes as Twitter, Facebook, including the other social media companies are being subjected to global scrutiny over how their algorithms surface certain content and their role in allowing misinformation or hate speech to spread.
Starting on 15 Nov 2021, developers will have access to data up to 2 million tweets per month through Twitter’s application programming interface (API) at no cost. Shevat stated that Twitter also changed its API policy for allowing more use cases, including removing restrictions on competing with Twitter. He further added, “I want everyone to be able to define their preferences and have their own curated content that’s adjusted to them. We can only do this if developers are in on it.”
Some samples of apps built with Twitter data include Block Party, which was founded by programmer Tracy Chou and allows Twitter users to filter content they are doing not want to see. Another app built by programmer Janique-ka John lets users more easily look for Twitter Spaces, the company’s live audio chat feature.
Twitter’s New Ventures:
Recently, the social media giant also rolled out several new updates on its new platforms. Twitter will no longer automatically refresh timelines on the platform with new tweets and users can now decide when they want to load new tweets. In the past, Twitter acknowledged that tweets would often disappear from view mid-read when a user’s timelines would automatically refresh. Mow users can load new tweets according to their own convenience by clicking on the tweet counter bar at the top of their timelines.
With the introduction of various new tweaks, Twitter is investing tremendous efforts in developing the platform for the ease of users. These tweaks come as Twitter has been working to enhance its platform and make its services more accessible.
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