Emergency services, transport agencies can use Twitter’s API for free

New Delhi. Twitter on Wednesday backtracked from its decision to put its application programming interface (API) behind a paywall and will allow emergency and transport service providers to access its API for free. In February, Twitter announced to stop offering free access to its API and instead launched a paid version for developers around the world.

Following the controversial decision, several emergency and transport accounts faced problems posting alerts on the platform.

The US Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) also experienced disruption to their API access.

Now, the Elon Musk-run platform has reversed its decision for some users.

The company said, “One of the most important use cases for the Twitter API has always been public utility. Verified government or publicly owned services that tweet weather alerts, transportation updates, and emergency notifications serve these important purposes, You can use the API for free.

It is still unclear what the platform means by ‘verified’.

Other affected services, including the NWS, the United States Geologic Service, and the US Forest Service, directed users to other ways to receive real-time alerts.

With the free version of Twitter’s API, users can post only 1,500 automated tweets per month.(IANS)

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