Twitter-owner Elon Musk has recently decided to close down free access to Twitter's application programming interface (API), which gives users access to tweet data. There are many different uses for the data provided by the social media platform. Third-party programs like Tweetbot—which helps users customize their feeds—have used Twitter's APIs, for example.
Experts in the field say the move could harm academic research by hindering access to data used in papers that analyze behavior on social media. When USC professor of computer science Kristina Lerman first heard about the move, she said her team started “scrambling to connect to collect the data we need for some of the projects we have going on this semester,” though the urgency subsided when more details were released, she told Ars.
Twitter will begin offering basic access to its API for $100 per month. There are few if any details released yet, but Twitter’s website shows that there are tiers of access with different tweet access limits, along with other limits on features like filtering. The higher tiers cost more.
Bot blocked
While some of the higher tiers of access may provide better services to researchers (or anyone else looking to use the API), they can still create barriers. Some research projects are well-funded via grants, and they should be fine. But other research projects come from PhD students who simply want to test out an idea, Lerman said. The added cost of $100 per month might be a barrier to some of them, she said.
She added that cost could also be an issue for reporters or private citizens who want to use the data for their own projects, such as data journalism. The data is also used by bots that scan for other bots, like Bot Sentinel.
According to Lerman, it’s unlikely that Musk decided on this change as a way to make money. “I can't imagine he will be able to squeeze that much money out of researchers,” she said, "because they don't like paying for things."
More likely, the move will dissuade people from accessing the API. Given that accessing the data requires resources on Twitter’s side, it could end up saving the company money. But it could ultimately damage the company—for example, it could hinder people’s ability to monitor trends like increases in hate speech on the platform. Given the frequent changes in strategy since Musk took over the company, there's uncertainty about how reliable the paid access will be, and it’s not impossible that Twitter will eventually close down access entirely, Lerman said.
Access (kind of) denied
Traian Truta, director of the School of Computing and Analytics at Northern Kentucky University, has been using Twitter’s API since around 2018. He and his colleagues have used it to study users’ perceptions about COVID-19 vaccines, among other things.
He agrees that some researchers may have an easier time getting access to the API due to funding and that Twitter could make decisions in the future that would make data even less available. In either case, this may cause researchers to seek other ways of accessing data, such as turning to a platform like Reddit.
“Most of the time, for many universities and for many students... doing research, the main reason they choose a particular type of data collection or a particular technology [is that the data is] available without any particular barriers,” Truta told Ars. If Twitter continues to erect price barriers, many researchers will just move elsewhere.