Twitter Makes Third-Party Client Ban Official ⇥ engadget.com

Karissa Bell, Engadget:

The “restrictions” section of Twitter’s developer agreement was updated Thursday with a clause banning “use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.” The addition is the only substantive change to the 5,000-word agreement.

The change confirms what the makers of many popular Twitter clients have suspected in recent days: that third-party Twitter services are no longer permitted under Elon Musk’s leadership.

There it is: nearly a week after disconnecting popular third-party clients without explanation or warning, Twitter has officially killed dozens of independent developers’ businesses. As I wrote earlier this week, it comes a little more than a year after Twitter began encouraging the development of third-party clients again. The Iconfactory put it well: it “didn’t expect to be writing [about the end of Twitterrific] so soon, though, and certainly not without having had time to notify you that it was coming”.

A disappointing move, made in a predictably disorganized and disrespectful way. This is how you ruin trust and soil a legacy. I do not know what this is like for you, but for the first time in sixteen years, I do not have a Twitter client in the dock on my Mac or on the first home screen of my iPhone.

Update: Tapbots says goodbye to Tweetbot.