Jari Pennanen
Glenn FleishmanI just figured out why Elon Musk pulled the plug abruptly on third-party Twitter apps. It’s an experiment. He’s not communicatinganything he’s doing for that reason. He’s looking at metrics to see if killing third-party apps' access to the API results in a reduction in usage and engagement that makes him think he should re-enable it, and then issue a false apology or whatever.
ardaniel@glennf he’s gonna end up apologizing to his new state-actor friends for reducing the footprint of users they can surveillance. 🙃
Rachid Jeitani 
@glennf I think you’re giving him too much credit.
Robin from Colorado 🇺🇸🇺🇦
RRB@rjeitani It’s the worst reason for this to happen, so likely accurate. Some third-party clients can still access the API, thus it appears like blocking and no an API failure. Occam’s Stupid Razor.
@glennf Oh, I have no doubt he did this intentionally, I just don’t think it’s an experiment or anything with more than 5 seconds of thought behind it.
Michael Gemar@glennf That’s more rational and evidence-based than most of his Twitter management so far.
SamJo
Asymco@glennf that’s exactly what I thought.
Bill Bennett@glennf Plausible.
Kirk McElhearn@glennf Makes sense.
Dan Hon@glennf yes, *and* also as likely just doing it anyway, experiment or no.
Shoq 🌿@glennf That sounds plausible, but if that's why he's doing, it's being done very selectively. Our app test users have been quite aggressive at posting smack about twitter and including masto links. No shut-off of our app thus far (but maybe it has too few users for them to care, too.)
Stefano Marinelli - old account - currently inactive@glennf the good, old method of unplugging the cable and waiting for complains. yes, it is absolutely probable
Tad van Sander 🇺🇦🇵🇸@glennf I don't think he can be that cunny. We are just nothing to him.
Brian@glennf certainly it will be hard to see any engagement drop off when everybody is just switching to the Twitter app, complaining about it, but continuing to post their shit.
Jonathan Polley@glennf He is also getting those users comfortable with not using twitter. If he does decide to re-enable the API, I wonder what percentage will go back to using it. I will probably not be back.
Tom Hannen
Ryan Goodlett 
@glennf that is a logical explanation. But I’ve stopped attributing such notions to him.
Warner Crocker@glennf Makes as much sense logically as anything else. But I’m not sure logic applies to anything happening there any longer.
@WarnerCrocker That’s irrefutable.
lbc4080@glennf that was the final straw for me and Twitter.
Jose Munoz@glennf I noticed that Tweetbot was not working on my phone and thought....I bet Elon killed 3rd party apps.
I didn't know what happened until just now.
Mike Cohen@glennf @burritojustice this makes sense
Walford East@glennf my thoughts exactly. I think it’s a test in the hope that shutting off 3rd party apps increases adoption of the 1st party client. They’re not communicating anything to the third party apps in case they find out Twitter actually does need them, in which case they just turn the access back on (I don’t know if there’d even be any fake apology/explanation). On a personal level this is the thing that’s moved me from being in both apps to feeling like I’m all in on this one.
DaveBrook@glennf that was my thought exactly…
Neil Robertson@glennf Plausible. Or maybe he's just a douche.
Both?
@nightscotsman Always both, I’m sure! He probably got mad when someone explained third-party apps don’t show ads.
@glennf By the way, Twitterrific for Mac still works for some reason 🤷♂️
M Horstmeier@glennf IMO, he's trying to see if he can monetize API access by removing access to the data
He still has the bot fixation, so I suspect he might want to use the metrics to justify his claims
Andrew Miller@glennf That’s a good theory. If that is the case we just have to hope that enough 3rd party app users decide to stop using Twitter entirely so that Elon will hopefully turn the api access back on.
Its Gregory@glennf
Twitter has become little Elon's Guinea pig farm for him to play with human beings that may not want to be played with... doesn't matter to little Elon
Twitter has become little Elon's Guinea pig farm for him to play with human beings that may not want to be played with... doesn't matter to little Elon
Frank Reiff@glennf You might be right, but I doubt it.
If he understood that the API users are potentially important, he would also understand that short term stats won’t tell him much about long term consequences, and that randomly switching off access to it for 48 hours irreversibly damages trust. It’s not a null operation.
The people who depend on the API now know that it can be taken away at the drop of a hat. Even if it comes back.
I think this is it. The apps no longer have a business case.
MediaBaron@glennf Suspending the Twitter API was the sledgehammer to swat the flies of debirdify and fedifinder letting users know which of their Twitter follows are on Mastodon so they can follow and migrate. Musk blasted everyone’s API access as he’s running scared of the migration and doesn’t want to help it.
@MediaBaron I could still run Fedifinder last night. This seemed to affect only apps?
@glennf It would not fetch the needed data.
@MediaBaron Strange! I was able to get it to auth just a few hours ago. I don't think those apps are really important enough to Musk to attack when it sweeps in all third-party access with no explanation.
Thomas Røst Stenerud@glennf I think it’s ok to remember that Twitter did something similar years ago (but less dramatic):
the API used to be open and in the early years of Twitter, the app-marked pushed a lot of the innovation on the site. Quite a lot of features, gestures and functionality made their debut through third-party innovation.
As Tw grew and wanted (more) control over it’s users ad-experience, Tw launched it’s native free app and 3rd-party-app-users were made to pay.
Steven Goh@glennf you could be overthinking it. It could be that something failed and he doesn’t know how to fix it. Hence it’s down indefinitely …
BetalogueHard to imagine that the level of “engagement” generated by third-party app users registers as little more than a blip in Twitter’s overall stats. So if you’re right, there won’t be any significant reduction and the change will become permanent. Also, you’re giving Musk too much credit. I don’t think he cares enough about this issue to do such a thing. He just sees the API as a way to bypass the ads and the algorithm, and so he pulled the plug. End of story.