Twitter continues to limit access to its API without informing select companies, with the latest fallout affecting WordPress and Flipboard.
Yesterday, Twitter suddenly cut off API access to WordPress.com, breaking the latter’s Jetpack Social tool used to automatically share posts to social networks such as Twitter. When website owners using the Jetpack Social tool try to re-connect or connect their sites to Twitter, they run into an error message regarding the Twitter API.
The end result? Website owners need to share links to Twitter manually, which can be a pain in the arse. And that’s what I’ve been doing for fun lately (note: it’s not fun).
While Jetpack Social can’t share posts automatically to Twitter at the moment, sharing to other platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and more are still working fine.
In a similar announcement today, Flipboard also has had its Twitter API access cut off as well, with users unable to see their Twitter feeds in the news app.
“If you had connected your Twitter hashtags or feeds to Flipboard, you’ll notice those are no longer working. You may see gray tiles or broken links. Unfortunately, without access to the Twitter API, we can’t do anything to fix these issues,” said Flipboard on Tuesday.
An alternative to following Twitter hashtags or lists, is to consider exploring Flipboard Topic feeds, says the company. “There are over 30,000 of them, on everything from #artificialintelligence to #twitter itself. They are high-quality feeds with little noise, delivering stories from trusted sources 24/7,” says Flipboard.
Twitter suddenly ended free API access in early February, and in late March the company debuted a new API with free, basic and enterprise tiers, priced from $100 per month.
Update April 4, 2023, 3:46pm PDT: Jetpack says the Twitter sharing service has now been restored.
