03/13/2023

Twitter’s $42,000-per-month API Prices Out Nearly Everyone

Researchers say this is too much for too little data

Since Twitter launched in 2006, the company has acted as a kind of heartbeat for social media conversation. That's partly because it is where media people go to talk about the media, but also because it has been willing to open up its backend to researchers. Academics have used free access to Twitter's API, or application programming interface, in order to access data on the kinds of conversations occurring on the platform, which helps them understand what the online world is talking about.

Twitter's API is used by vast numbers of researchers. Since 2020, there have been more than 17,500 academic papers based on the platform's data, giving strength to the argument that Twitter owner Elon Musk has long claimed, that the platform is the "de facto town square."

But new charges, included in documentation seen by WIRED, suggest that most organizations that have relied on API access to conduct research will now be priced out of using Twitter.

Please select this link to read the complete article from WIRED.