Twitter confirms it is intentionally blocking third party apps like Tweetbot

Following several days of being quiet, Twitter has acknowledged on Tuesday that it is intentionally blocking third-party apps like Tweetbot and Twitterific from using Twitter APIs. The company said in a tweet that it’s “enforcing its long-standing API rules,” which “may result in some apps not working.”

When some third-party Twitter apps started breaking last Thursday, it was initially believed to be some kind of bug that caused the interruption. But while Twitter declined to comment on the situation for days, it turned out to be a deliberate decision.

Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules. That may result in some apps not working.

— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) January 17, 2023

The statement does not even provide a link to the rules Twitter is referring to, so it still leaves us in the dark as to what is really happening. 

According to internal messages viewed by The Information over the weekend, a senior software engineer at Twitter explained that the suspensions were intentional, suggesting that many Twitter employees weren’t even aware of what was going on.

The company said in mid-December that it will keep funding its Developer Program and Twitter API.

As you may have heard, we’ve had to make some very hard decisions to deprecate or pause projects that have been worked on this past year. However, our commitment to the Twitter Developer Platform remains strong. 💪

— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) December 16, 2022

“We have still heard nothing from anyone at Twitter on any level,” Tweetbot co-creator Paul Haddad said. “If there’s some long-standing rule that we’ve been unknowingly breaking for the last 10+ years, we’d love to know what it is so that, if possible, we can comply with it.”