In not remotely unexpected news in the social media space, the predictably unpredictable belligerent man-child on a sugar high that is Elon Musk has continued to bash his fists at the Twitter control panel and break even more things that people love.
This time around, it’s Tweetbot, and a whole host of other popular Twitter apps, having their API access disabled - the function that allows third party apps to talk to and interact with Twitter. These being the very apps that made Twitter as popular as it is (was) today.
Back in the day of Twitter’s youth, they didn’t have their own native app, just the website. So everyone started using various third party apps in order to access the site from their smartphones, because, you know, ease of use.
Eventually, Twitter bought one of the popular apps at the time, Tweetie - and then promptly ruined the app entirely. The default Twitter app is now a complete bastardisation of Tweetie, muddled user experience, riddled with ads, and completely intolerable to use. Which is why so many people relied on third party apps that made the whole user experience of Twitter far nicer. Developers that actually made decent apps, that functioned well, and were a delight to use, compared to the web experience for sure.
I’ve been a Tweetbot user ever since they launched around 10+ years ago, it being my default every time I’m using Twitter from my phone, or indeed Mac, using the Tweetbot for Mac app as well.
So a couple of weeks ago, this happened:
Everyone hoped it was a temporary glitch, which would be ironed out within a few hours.
That didn't happen.
Rumours started abounding related to Musk’s annoyance of everyone using Twitter apps other than Twitter’s own, because they don’t include the ads he keeps wanting to push. But there remained hope that it was simply a glitch.
Except it’s now become clear that it is no glitch, it’s a deliberate move to block all these apps that have existed quite happily for a decade or more, always complying with Twitter’s API rules and regs, all because of one certain owner that wants everything his way.
Twitter finally came out and declared that access had been revoked due to these apps contravening the API policy - but none of these developers had actually been told of any alleged breach so it could be fixed. No warning, no written indications of things that needed fixing ASAP. Nothing.
He just metaphorically ripped out the power cable from their access, and that was that.
This alleged breach of API rules makes even less sense when you consider that digital detectives have since found that the API rules were changed about a week AFTER access was revoked.
Nice move, Elon.
No wonder people are dropping like flies from Twitter while it’s under Musk’s control, apps like Mastodon are seeing record numbers of new users at the moment. And yet more platforms are cropping up all the time to draw users away from the popular microblogging platform once and for all. Time will tell whether this will gain traction further.
Hive Social, Post, Mastodon, Spill, and several others seem to be cropping up all the time.
Interesting times ahead, methinks.
My Love For The Beano
Last week, I spotted online that a gentleman named David Sutherland OBE had died.
I’d imagine you haven’t heard of him - I hadn’t heard of him either.
However, you’d most certainly know his work.
He was an illustrator for The Beano for decades - my favourite comic growing up. The Bash Street Kids being a particular love of mine.
The BBC Archive Twitter account released this video interview he gave in 1995 upon announcing his death. A very talented man, and a superb legacy. His work will most certainly live on and continue to be admired for many years to come.