Twitter announced it will revert to making its API free to use for accounts posting public announcements such as weather alerts, transportation information, and emergency warnings.
In yet another confusing change of direction, Twitter announced on Tuesday that verified government or public-owned services will be eligible for free API usage, as long as they are posting about public utility alerts.
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Last month, Twitter introduced its new API pricing tiers, with limits that were clearly not enough for PSA accounts: 1,500 tweets per month for free users and 3,000 per month for basic tier users. As a result, several public services, including the National Weather Services (NWS) and New York’s Metro Transit Authority (MTA,) announced they would no longer use Twitter to share automated alert tweets.
While the news will satisfy the above-mentioned, the change in API pricing is still having a massive effect on other companies who are making moves to limit the integration of their online tools with Twitter. Microsoft has removed the option to share on Twitter from its social media sharing tool, Flipboard announced its Twitter integration will no longer be working, and more recently, WordPress, the largest content management system in the world, said that users will no longer be able to automatically share their posts on Twitter using the Jetpack Social product.