in changing face, Twitter says he’s back Free access to a key tool for verified government and “publicly owned” services so they can tweet out weather, transit and other alerts after the New York City Transportation Agency said earlier this week it would no longer use the platform in special service guidelines with it.
The D.C. transit authority is among countless official and unofficial accounts that suddenly lost access to the Twitter API, or Application Programming Interface, to send automated alerts about service changes and emergencies last week. By Thursday noon, the top executives had agreed to stop posting service alerts on the platform altogether.
The decision put the nation’s largest transportation network between a An increasing number of accountsfrom NPR To Elton John, who has either reduced his Twitter presence or left the platform since its acquisition by Elon Musk.
Twitter has indicated that the days of private accounts publishing collections of information at no cost may be over. Last month, the company announced a new pricing system that would charge for access to its API, which is used by accounts that post frequent alerts, such as transit and weather agencies.
MTA officials estimated the cost could be as high as $50,000 per month. For a transportation agency facing a multibillion-dollar shortfall, that’s the biggest concern.
So, last Thursday, the Transport and Transport Authority told its one million Twitter followers that it will no longer use the platform for service alerts and information.
On Tuesday, Twitter backtracked and announced that “verified government services or publicly owned services that tweet weather alerts, transit updates, and emergency notifications may use the API, for these important purposes, free of charge.”
In recent days, MTA officials have been in contact with Twitter’s development team, though the agency has not said whether it will return to posting service alerts on Twitter in light of the change.
A representative for the air transport authority did not immediately respond to a message for comment.
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