Twitter had undergone radical changes after it passed under the management of Elon Musk. Making Twitter API (application programming interfaces) access, which was previously free, paid for, was one of them.
Now, there has been a development that concerns academics in this regard. The company, which demands that academics pay an exorbitant $42,000 monthly fee for API access, wants those who do not do so to delete the data.
Twitter gave researchers 30 days
Information released today revealed that the company wants academic researchers to delete their Twitter data if they will not pay the set fee. In other words, researchers who do not pay the money will not be able to get updated data and will have to delete old data. The company gave them 30 days to make a decision. It turned out that the researchers were even asked to take a screenshot of deleting the data.
Researchers on the platform have been able to monitor topics such as disinformation and hate speech for a long time and examine their real-life effects. To do this, Twitter provided an API called Decahouse. This API also allowed researchers to access an aggregated data stream of 10% of Twitter posts each day. Decahouse was previously available for free or for monthly fees of $200.
However, as we mentioned at the beginning, the company removed free access to APIs in February and started to set high prices ranging from $ 100 to $ 42 thousand per month. This caused many companies to move away from Twitter. Universities also needed $42,000 of “enterprise API” subscriptions, which were too high for researchers to afford.
The decision can have frightening consequences
Researchers say the decision could have serious harm. For example, researcher Flippo Menczer from Indiana University stated that the decision could have dire effects, such as the spread of disinformation on the platform. He also added that issues such as the removal of fake accounts will be affected.
Some academics stated that they would quit their studies due to this decision, while others stated that they would obtain the data informally. We will see how this policy of Twitter will produce results in the future.
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