Tech
Twitter

Twitter is blocking third-party clients like Tweetbot and Twitterrific

Just another well-thought-out step taken by Elon Musk?
By Christianna Silva  on 
Elon Musk in front of a bunch of blue Twitter birds.
Elon does what he does (makes Twitter worse). Credit: Mashable illustration / Bob Al-Greene

Well, I hope you don't want to use just about any major third-party clients on Twitter, because Elon Musk appears to have blocked them from accessing Twitter's API for some reason. According to internal Slack messages viewed by The Information(opens in a new tab), the social media platform intentionally suspended those third-party apps. In one post, a senior software engineer literally says: "Third-party app suspensions are intentional."

The third-party Twitter clients have been broken since at least Thursday evening, and developers say they still don't have any kind of update, according to the Verge(opens in a new tab). Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Mashable.

Since Thursday evening, users have been complaining that they couldn't use Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and other apps you can use to scroll through Twitter without going directly through Twitter's software. 

"And I really want an official public statement," Tweetbot co-creator Paul Haddad said(opens in a new tab) in a Mastodon post on Sunday. "We have a large number of sub. renewals for year 3 of Tweetbot coming up in a couple of weeks. If we're permanently cut off I need to know so we can remove the app from sale and prevent those. Which obviously I'd rather not do."

On Sunday Twitterrific tweeted(opens in a new tab): "There’s still no official word about what’s going on. We apologize for the ongoing interruption."

But, as with anything Musk is doing at Twitter, it isn't particularly thorough. Some apps — like Albatross and Fenix — still work for some people while others don't, depending on if you're using it on iOS or Android, the Verge reported. It's all, unsurprisingly, messy.

More in Twitter, Elon Musk

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Christianna Silva
Senior Culture Reporter

Christianna Silva is a Senior Culture Reporter at Mashable. They write about tech and digital culture, with a focus on Facebook and Instagram. Before joining Mashable, they worked as an editor at NPR and MTV News, a reporter at Teen Vogue and VICE News, and as a stablehand at a mini-horse farm. You can follow them on Twitter @christianna_j(opens in a new tab).


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