Twitter has officially banned the use of third-party client applications

Developers of third-party clients who lost access to Twitter were waiting for some certainty – and they got it. The company added an update to its developer agreement in which it officially banned third-party clients for the social network.

Now, Twitter’s new developer agreement for using the Twitter API expressly prohibits third-party clients for the service. As Engadget notes, one sentence appeared in the large document, which fundamentally changes the situation. “You will not, and will not attempt (or permit others to)… use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product for the Twitter Applications”‎.

The statement came a week after microblogging owners using third-party clients for convenience were unexpectedly unable to log into their accounts on Android, iOS and other platforms. This applied to Tweetbot, Twitterrific, Fenix, Talon and many others on iOS, macOS, Android and Windows (less popular apps continued to work, by the way). Representatives of the social network and its new owner, Elon Musk, were silent on this matter for several days (although Elon Musk always seems to have something to say on any occasion, even when he does not understand it), until reports appeared that the company deliberately disabled third-party clients.

Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules. That may result in some apps not working.

— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) January 17, 2023

After that, Twitter finally confirmed the fact of the shutdown, saying that in this way the company “ensures compliance with long-standing API rules”. However, the representatives did not specify exactly which rules were violated, how exactly they are changed or strengthened, and why the company did not notify the developers of third-party Twitter clients about these changes in advance. They were simply told that support for their applications had been “suspended”.

Obviously, this is a big blow for users, as third-party apps have been part of the platform for a long time and have been very useful. Twitter has not yet explained the reasons for such changes, but it is likely that they are related to ongoing problems with advertisers that arose after the company was taken over by Elon Musk.

Now you can use Twitter only through the official application: