Twitter Is Killing Off the Fun Bots ⇥ buzzfeednews.com

Katie Notopoulos and Pranav Dixit, Buzzfeed News:

Álex Barredo, who runs @BigTechAlert, told BuzzFeed News he’s open to paying a small fee to keep the popular bot running, but not if it costs $100 a month. He also has other options. He’s aware that most of the actual spam bots don’t even use the API to operate (which means charging for API access isn’t really going to wipe out spam), so one option he’s considering is to rework the bot so it doesn’t need the API. He’s also considering either open-sourcing it or moving it to its own website or a different platform.

Diego Mendoza, of Semafor, assembled a list of bots that are likely to disappear. My favourite:

For all the geopolitics geeks out there, @FlagsMashupBot randomly mashes two flags together to create new, sometimes outlandish designs. Some of the more recent design include “Soctlan” : the combined flags of Scotland and Reunion.

I am also disappointed we will be losing art built on Twitter’s API — projects like Tuang T’s “#Adulting”. I have exhibited art which uses the API, too. Any artist relying on a third-party service has to know its ongoing availability cannot be guaranteed, but this is a crappy way to bow out.

Update: Twitter also wants to charge companies one thousand dollars every month to show their accounts are verified and legitimate. Good luck with that.