Twitter confirms: no more free API access for researchers

To retain the same level of access, researchers will have to pay $100 per month

Twitter contacted academics over the weekend to tell them they would no longer be granted free in-depth access to Twitter data via its v2 API. Under that deal, qualified researchers were able to retrieve 10 million tweets per month and had access to full-archive search and advanced search operators.

Now, to retain the same level of access, researchers will have to pay $100 per month.

The change to the Academic Research terms was anticipated after the social media firm announced last week that it would "no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead"

Researchers from schools, universities and charities use the Twitter data set to study social trends, disinformation and responses to natural disasters and wars, among other topics. Some had hoped their free access might be granted a reprieve, but this was not to be.

"On February 13, we will introduce our new low-cost, basic access that offers a low level of API usage, and full access to Ads API for a $100 monthly fee," the email from the Twitter Platform Development Team reads.

"This basic access will replace our previous access levels (Essential, Elevated, and Academic Research). We will provide instructions on how to subscribe to the basic access through our website on Monday."

It continues: "On February 13, we will also deprecate the Premium API access. If you're subscribed to Premium, you can apply for Enterprise access here to continue using these endpoints. We truly believe that the developer community can continue to create value with our Twitter API. We hope you are excited about this new chapter of the Twitter Developer Platform as we continue to invest in our ecosystem's success. Please continue to follow @TwitterDev for the latest updates."

The new limited free tier includes "a new form of free write access" to the Twitter API "limited to Tweet creation of up to 1,500 tweets per month for a single authenticated user token."

The message was greeted with dismay by academics, some of whom have organised via a group called the Coalition for Independent Technology Research calling on Twitter to "ensure that APIs for studying public content on the platform remain easily accessible for journalists, academics, and civil society," and on policymakers to "demonstrate leadership and require reliable public-purpose data access for all to protect this vital infrastructure."

The ongoing chaos at Twitter seems to have affected the rollout of the new terms before it has begun.

"We're being directed to the Enterprise ($$$$$) option. The only problem? Filling out their form results in an auto-reply directing researchers back to the Academic Research Program. And the contact person listed no longer works at Twitter," tweeted Rebekah Tromble, director of the Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics at George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Josep Borrell, vice president of the European Commission, was also critical of Twitter's plans to restrict free access.

"This would be a serious step back from early commitments. We need more transparency and accountability, not less. I call on Twitter - and on its owner - to ensure that all obligations that they have taken will be honoured," he said in a speech on at the EEAS Conference on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference last week. "We need a standardised and interoperable way of sharing analysis within the community that tackles information manipulation."

Twitter was one of the first social media sites to allow free access to data via a range of APIs to academics, and has been the most popular social platform for academic research.

While academics will still have access to the same level of data, at least for now, smaller institutes and charities will now have to weigh up paying a fee for the same information.