INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Twitter today updated its Developer Policy to clarify rules around data usage, including in academic research, as well as its position on
The policy has also been entirely rewritten in an effort to simplify the language used and make it more conversational, Twitter says
The new policy has been shortened from eight sections to four, and the accompanying Twitter Developer Agreement has been updated to align
with the Policy changes, as well.
One of the more notable updates to the new policy is a change to the rules to better support
non-commercial research.
Twitter data is used to study topics like spam, abuse and other areas related to conversation health, the company
noted, and it wants these efforts to continue
The revised policy now allows the use of the Twitter API for academic research purposes
In addition, Twitter is simplifying its rules around the redistribution of Twitter data to aid researchers
Now, researchers will be able to share an unlimited number of Tweet IDs and/or User IDs, if they&re doing so on behalf of an academic
institution and for the sole purpose of non-commercial research, such as peer review, says Twitter.
The company is also revising rules to
clarify how developers are to proceed when the use cases for Twitter data change
In the new policy, developers are informed that they must notify the company of any &substantive& modification to their use case and receive
approval before using Twitter content for that purpose
Not doing so will result in suspension and termination of their API and data access, Twitter warns.
The policy additionally outlines when
and where &off-Twitter matching& is permitted, meaning when a Twitter account is being associated with a profile built using other data
Either the developer will need to obtain opt-in consent from the user in question, or they can only proceed if the information was provided
by the person or is based on publicly available data.
The above changes are focused on ensuring Twitter data is accessible when being used
for something of merit, like academic research, and that it protected from more questionable use cases.
Finally, the revamped policy
clarifies that not all bots are bad
Some even enhance the Twitter experience, the company says, or provide useful information
As examples of good bots, Twitter pointed to the fun account@everycolorbot and informative @earthquakesSF.
Twitter identifies a bot as any
account where behaviors like &creating, publishing, and interacting with Tweets or Direct Messages are automated in some way through our
API.
Going forward, developers must specify if they&re operating a bot account, what the account is, and who is behind it
This way, explains Twitter, &it easier for everyone on Twitter to know what a bot & and what not.
Of course, those operating bots for more
nefarious purposes — like spreading propaganda or disinformation — will likely just ignore this policy and hope not to be found out
This particular change follows the recent finding that a quarter of all tweets about climate change were coming from bots posting messages
of climate change denialism
In addition, it was recently discovered that Trump supporters and QAnon conspiracists were using an app called Power10 to turn their Twitter
accounts into bots.
Twitter says since it introduced a new developer review process in July 2018, it has reviewed over a million developer
applications and approved 75%
It also suspended more than 144,000 apps from bad actors in the last six months and revamped its developer application to be easier to use
It now working on the next generation of the Twitter API and is continuing to explore new products, including through its testing program,
