Elon Musk has made a lot of controversial decisions on Twitter since taking office. But, perhaps none has been criticized more sharply than the decision to cut Public service and security-critical accounts from Twitter’s API, unless they pay for the new exorbitant enterprise pricing.
But Twitter appears to have changed its mind on Tuesday.
“One of the most important use cases for the Twitter API has always been public benefit,” official Twitter account @TwitterDev chirp(Opens in a new tab). “Verified government or publicly owned services that tweet weather alerts, transit updates, and emergency notifications may use the API, for these important purposes, free of charge.”
The decision to make exceptions for important accounts that have been recently cut off from the Twitter API is certainly a welcome one. Twitter The original hard stance is that everyone who wanted to use their API—other than the small $100 “Hobbyist” plan—had to pay for the Enterprise plan, which starts at $42,000 per month.
Twitter keeps logging you out? you are not alone
Twitter’s new API plans have forced hundreds of indie developers to shut down their Twitter-based apps over the past month. As a direct result, emergency weather alert accounts operated by the National Weather Service (NWS) and public transit alert accounts such as MTA’s NYC Subway accounts have been announced.(Opens in a new tab) They will not be able to provide critical, automated and up-to-date alert services on Twitter.
It seems that cutting off the NWS and MTA has received more user feedback than any other unpopular moves on Twitter. First, these types of accounts have always played an important role in the Twitter ecosystem since the early days of the platform, helping to cement Twitter as the place for breaking news updates.
However, many details are still unclear. For example, when Twitter says “verified”, does that mean that the agency only needs to prove that the account belongs to them, or does it require an official verified Twitter account? A since-deleted tweet from the NYC Subway account operated by the MTA explained that they had not been informed of the change on Twitter yet:
Credit: Twitter/screenshot
News that comes as a welcome surprise is increasingly rare for Twitter, which makes this announcement a refreshing change of pace, even if it’s just a reversal of a previous, apparently ill-advised announcement.