• Researchers have reportedly been given a deadline when it comes to deleting any Twitter data they have used on projects or studies.
• If they wish to continue to access the platform’s API, they would need to pay $42 000 a month.
• Currently, only governments and utilities have free access to the API, as Twitter continues to alienate many communities with its pricing.

Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, he has been obsessed with making people pay for access to Twitter, whether that be everyday citizens with Twitter Blue subscriptions or developers and researchers with exorbitant API costs.

When it comes to the latter, it looks like a new deadline has been imposed, according to an email seen by iNews. Should researchers not be willing to pay for access to the Twitter API, which currently sits at a cost of $42 000 (~R828 663) per month, they will need to delete any and all data they have gathered.

The cost of access rises from there, with the $42k amount tiered for 50 million tweets, as it rises in price significantly thereafter. As Wired pointed out, 50 million tweets is an extremely small amount of data, representing roughly 0.3 percent of monthly tweets on the platform.

“I don’t know if there’s an academic on the planet who could afford $42,000 a month for Twitter,” Jeremy Blackburn, assistant professor at Binghamton University in New York, told the publication.

“It seems like a really steep increase for a tiny amount of data. One percent of Twitter a few months ago was free. Now Twitter is offering 0.3 percent for half a million dollars,” added Kenneth Joseph, assistant professor at the University of Buffalo.

As for the aforementioned email, it has reportedly informed researchers that if they choose not to engage in a new contract with Twitter, they will need to, “expunge all Twitter data stored and cached in your systems”. On top of this, screenshots are required to serve as, “evidence of removal.” A deadline of 30 days after current contracts elapse has been outlined.

As such, it is only government institutions or utility service providers that have free access to the Twitter API under the new regime.

This is quite an about-face from Twitter, which has previously welcomed the interaction and engagement with those in academic and research fields. Before Musk entered the picture, Twitter leveraged the insight and interest of researchers to assist with initiatives too, such as highlighting the spread of misinformation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With this community having become a key pillar for Twitter in recent years, not just when it comes to providing insights, but also helping to inform others by serving as a social barometer, the cost of access to the API is simply untenable for most.

As such, we could see the research and academic Twitter community all but perish given these new directives.

[Source – iNews.co.uk]
[Image – Photo by Ujesh Krishnan on Unsplash]