Twitter

Twitter officially bans third-party clients in new developer agreement

Ben Schoon | Jan 19 2023 - 1:37 pm PT

Twitter issued an update to its developer agreement on January 19, 2023 that officially banned third-party clients for the social network.

Effective as of today, Twitter’s new developer agreement for the use of the Twitter API directly bans the creation of third-party clients for the platform. As Engadget points out, the language below is the only substantial change to the massive document.

You will not or attempt to (and will not allow others to)…use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications

This comes a week after Twitter clients unexpectedly shut down across Android, iOS, and other platforms without notice. Twitter and its new owner, Elon Musk, were silent on the issue for several days until reports came out to show that the company had intentionally cut off third-party Twitter clients. After that, Twitter finally confirmed the cutoff, saying that it was “enforcing long-standing API rules” without clarifying which rules were being broken. Developers of third-party Twitter clients were simply informed that their apps had been “suspended.”

Obviously, this comes as quite a blow for Twitter users, as third-party apps have been a part of the platform for a long time. Twitter has yet to explain its reasoning for the change, but it’s speculated to be related to ongoing advertiser concerns since Musk’s takeover.