blaineFeb 2, 2023

Not going to lie, Twitter killing off free API access hits me in the feels. I remember with great affection the flood of creativity that happened after we opened up the API, and it's heartbreaking to see that unceremoniously strangled.

I'm relieved that we've got better alternatives, though. While this is perhaps the final straw for many bots on Twitter, it's been a long time coming and the API has long been hobbled compared to the early days. Open protocols or bust. ✊

Show threadblaineFeb 2, 2023
Meanwhile, has anyone built a Twitter API compatibility shim for Mastodon? 🤔
Show threadRuss GarrettFeb 2, 2023

@blaine I made this for my (post-only) bots, but it seems like it's soon to become obsolete for me:

https://github.com/russss/polybot

GitHub - russss/polybot: A framework for making social media bots for multiple networks

A framework for making social media bots for multiple networks - russss/polybot

GitHub
Show threadSimon Fondrie-TeitlerFeb 2, 2023

@russss @blaine

Damn, sad I'm just now seeing this, would have been useful. Might still be I guess. Any sense how hard it is to store the state data in something like s3 instead of locally?

I guess I'd also have to figure out how to keep the RSS feed my bots are also creating if I didn't want to just switch everyone to the Mastodon provided one.

Show threadblaineFeb 2, 2023
@simon @russss the goal of the thing I'm proposing would be to not require *any* modifications of bots at all, except changing "twitter.com" to something else. If the bot runs in a container, you could even just add an /etc/hosts entry for twitter.com and point it at localhost with a little cert chain fixing.
Show threadSimon Fondrie-Teitler

@blaine @russss

Yeah, I think that would be great. But until we have that this seems helpful.

Feb 2, 2023 at 4:49pmWeb