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My historical perception of Twitter is that they were incredibly developer-hostile, to the point of almost being predatory (copy-ing 3rd party apps/integrations

My historical perception of Twitter is that they were incredibly developer-hostile, to the point of almost being predatory (copy-ing 3rd party apps/integrations, then shutting said 3rd party apps out of the API...). This strikes me as similar to Google announcing a new Google Reader developer platform? However Somebody please tell me if my impression is outdated.

foxhop 5y ago
The Twitter platform was very open. This is why it grew like wild fire in tech circles. Then over time the Twitter company became predatory (claimed it wouldn't have it's own app, but then launch it's own), at first nobody cared because the v1 api was solid and anyone could make a client or a bot. Then over time they started going after clients and at one point said third party clients are outlawed (this was immediately retracted, but this didn't stop them from iterating in ways which broke clients). As a cry to stop this tyranny things like "app.net" were proposed. Then few years after that mastodon and a bunch of others which are not around anymore. When I was using Twitter the most, I finally installed the official app after using a few clients over the years. Now when I use Twitter it is only to broadcast tweet and I just use Firefox on Android using the official mobile site. After messing with Twitter in a number of different ways over the years I decided it isn't worth it. There are a graveyard of open source clients which talk to twitter over api v1 in all languages. Also did you hear they can just ban presidents? https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/tech/trump-twitter-ban/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/tech/trump-twitter-ban/index.... https://www.remarkbox.com/remarkbox-is-now-pay-what-you-can.html https://www.remarkbox.com/remarkbox-is-now-pay-what-you-can....
- alangibson 5y ago
  Why shouldn't they be able to ban a president? They're not royalty. In any event, they can ban anyone at any time. Their platform is private property, for better or worse.
- easrng 5y ago
  Mastodon still exists, I like it and would recommend it.
  - foxhop 5y ago
    Yup, a link to my mastodon instance is in my profile! I'm saying mastadon isn't my first try to help people leave the censored platforms. I'm currently building a couple myself!
  - gopiandcode 5y ago
    Not just mastadon, but the fediverse in general, which encompasses quite a diversity of software (pleroma, pixelfed, etc.) and has apparently now even started to threaten twitter enough to make it start initiatives to try and EEE it.
Macha 5y ago
Twitter's hostility comes down to jealously defending their business model. They declared war on third party clients about a decade ago, and that hasn't really changed. You'll note the API available under the new, looser, rules does not include any equivalent of the home timeline endpoint, which would be pretty essential to the client use case. A third party client could do things like not show their embedded ads (promoted tweets), or display the timeline in a manner more useful to the user than to Twitter's engagement metrics, and Twitter don't like that. They've been pretty ok towards e.g. making your CSR tool interface with twitter to answer support requests over Twitter. This doesn't really strike me as a change in direction, though it does look easier for people in the second category to get started.
- malshe 5y ago
  By any chance do you know whether V2 has an endpoint for bookmarks?
  - andypiper 5y ago
    The bookmarks API is being worked on and is on the roadmap https://t.co/roadmap https://t.co/roadmap
  - Macha 5y ago
    The v2 docs are here: https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/migrate/twitter-api-endpoint-map https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/migrate/tw... There doesn't look to be. I think it has been updated in the last few hours - they've added a link to a trello board created 4 hours ago, and I don't remember a [COMING SOON] replacement for home timeline being there previously. So maybe they're going to add more endpoints than currently exist, but it'll take a lot to not have people worried about another rug pull.
    - malshe 5y ago
      I had seen the api endpoints earlier and noticed that bookmarks were absent. But as I am not a professional user of this API, I wanted to see whether more knowledgeable people know anything I may have missed. Thanks for confirming it!

foxhop 5y ago

The Twitter platform was very open. This is why it grew like wild fire in tech circles. Then over time the Twitter company became predatory (claimed it wouldn't have it's own app, but then launch it's own), at first nobody cared because the v1 api was solid and anyone could make a client or a bot. Then over time they started going after clients and at one point said third party clients are outlawed (this was immediately retracted, but this didn't stop them from iterating in ways which broke clients). As a cry to stop this tyranny things like "app.net" were proposed. Then few years after that mastodon and a bunch of others which are not around anymore. When I was using Twitter the most, I finally installed the official app after using a few clients over the years. Now when I use Twitter it is only to broadcast tweet and I just use Firefox on Android using the official mobile site. After messing with Twitter in a number of different ways over the years I decided it isn't worth it. There are a graveyard of open source clients which talk to twitter over api v1 in all languages. Also did you hear they can just ban presidents? https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/tech/trump-twitter-ban/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/tech/trump-twitter-ban/index.... https://www.remarkbox.com/remarkbox-is-now-pay-what-you-can.html https://www.remarkbox.com/remarkbox-is-now-pay-what-you-can....

alangibson 5y ago
Why shouldn't they be able to ban a president? They're not royalty. In any event, they can ban anyone at any time. Their platform is private property, for better or worse.
easrng 5y ago
Mastodon still exists, I like it and would recommend it.
- foxhop 5y ago
  Yup, a link to my mastodon instance is in my profile! I'm saying mastadon isn't my first try to help people leave the censored platforms. I'm currently building a couple myself!
- gopiandcode 5y ago
  Not just mastadon, but the fediverse in general, which encompasses quite a diversity of software (pleroma, pixelfed, etc.) and has apparently now even started to threaten twitter enough to make it start initiatives to try and EEE it.

Macha 5y ago

Twitter's hostility comes down to jealously defending their business model. They declared war on third party clients about a decade ago, and that hasn't really changed. You'll note the API available under the new, looser, rules does not include any equivalent of the home timeline endpoint, which would be pretty essential to the client use case. A third party client could do things like not show their embedded ads (promoted tweets), or display the timeline in a manner more useful to the user than to Twitter's engagement metrics, and Twitter don't like that. They've been pretty ok towards e.g. making your CSR tool interface with twitter to answer support requests over Twitter. This doesn't really strike me as a change in direction, though it does look easier for people in the second category to get started.

malshe 5y ago
By any chance do you know whether V2 has an endpoint for bookmarks?
- andypiper 5y ago
  The bookmarks API is being worked on and is on the roadmap https://t.co/roadmap https://t.co/roadmap
- Macha 5y ago
  The v2 docs are here: https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/migrate/twitter-api-endpoint-map https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/migrate/tw... There doesn't look to be. I think it has been updated in the last few hours - they've added a link to a trello board created 4 hours ago, and I don't remember a [COMING SOON] replacement for home timeline being there previously. So maybe they're going to add more endpoints than currently exist, but it'll take a lot to not have people worried about another rug pull.
  - malshe 5y ago
    I had seen the api endpoints earlier and noticed that bookmarks were absent. But as I am not a professional user of this API, I wanted to see whether more knowledgeable people know anything I may have missed. Thanks for confirming it!