Many third-party Twitter apps, including Tweetbot, have been unavailable for days – and a new report suggests the social media network has intentionally suspended customers. If true, this could be the latest insult that will see a significant number of hardcore Twitter users leave for new pastures.
According to some internal Slack messages retrieved by The Information (opens in a new tab), the continued outage of clients like Tweetbot and Twitterific “was an intentional suspension”. Although these messages do not specify why Twitter is disconnecting the services, a strong possibility is that they are not helping to generate advertising revenue on the network.
Some third-party clients have ad-free versions, which isn’t much use in a time when Twitter is trying to make up for declining ad revenue. But Twitter’s continued silence on the matter has fueled growing outrage over the situation – and that will only grow if it does indeed take down third-party apps permanently.
Twitter’s complete lack of communication resulted in some pretty dispirited statements from third-party apps. As Tweetbot comes back down this weekend, client co-founder Paul Haddad wrote on Mastodon (opens in a new tab) that it is time to go “to smaller but greener pastures”.
Twitterific (opens in a new tab)meanwhile, says “there’s still no official word on what’s going on,” while Heel (opens in a new tab) said it “looks like Twitter has pulled support for Talon” and is “working to see if there will be a fix for this.” The official Twitter account of Tweetbot suggests not (opens in a new tab)stating that “we are honored that so many of you have chosen us as your means of browsing Twitter over the past 12 years”.
We’re trying to get an official response from Twitter on the apparent third-party app suspensions and will update this article if we have a response. But the continued silence from the official Twitter account, the support account and Elon Musk so far suggests that the lack of communication is an intentional, albeit misguided, strategy that could ultimately cost him even more users.
Analysis: Twitter’s rocky relationship with third-party apps comes to a natural end
Twitter has had a rocky relationship with third-party apps for several years — and it looks increasingly likely that it’s ready to sever ties with them altogether.
Just over four years ago, Twitter disabled several key features in apps like Tweetbot, Twitterific, and Talon, including the APIs needed for push notifications. And even going back to 2012, the network told developers they should move away from building apps that included Twitter’s personal timeline.
The reason was that Twitter wanted to focus on growing its native proprietary apps. But it also clashed with the developer-friendly environment that helped birth the network and gave it its community feel. Many features, including the retweet and hashtag, were actually inspired by ideas from Twitter users.
In another timeline, Twitter could have fully embraced the ideas and innovations sparked by outsiders and third parties to help fuel its growth. But under Elon Musk’s leadership, the social network is increasingly making user-unfriendly decisions, like hiding its timeline feed.
The seemingly intentional disabling of many third-party apps is another example of this trend – and it could finally see many Twitter users, especially those who remember its relatively utopian beginnings, come to the conclusion that they are no longer welcome. For many, the tastes of Mastodon are more like home.
