Jetpack announced that the auto-share feature of the social part of the plugin will no longer work for Twitter, blaming last-minute changes by Twitter and the inability to reach an agreement.
Jetpack’s announcement explained:
“Twitter decided, on short notice, to dramatically change the terms and pricing of the Twitter API.
We have attempted to work with Twitter in good faith to negotiate new terms, but have been unable to reach an agreement.
As a result, the Twitter connection to Jetpack Social will stop working and your blog posts will no longer be automatically shared on Twitter.
Twitter provides free access to a limited version of its API for people, for an application ID.
It also offers a “basic” version that costs $100 per month for two App IDs, and doesn’t say how much the enterprise tier costs.
These prices are certainly expensive and counterproductive for a site like Twitter that is losing users to Mastodon and other social media sites.
The new Twitter API access fees make little economic sense for Twitter (which should be trying to make it easier for users to engage with the site) and for services like Jetpack that can attract thousands of daily users.
Jetpack recommends sharing tweets manually by copying the URL and pasting it into the tweets.
Other Twitter apps affected by the Twitter API change
Unannounced changes to the Twitter API starting in January 2023 were the first signs of trouble.
Companies like Twitterrific and Tweetbot announced they were shutting down because their users could no longer connect through the Twitter API.
Twitterrific is leaving Twitter
In a blog post announcing the shutdown, the developers asked their users not to request refunds because, they said, that would be devastating for a small business like theirs.
The developers of Twitterrific wrote:
“We regret to say that the app’s sudden and undignified demise is due to an unannounced and undocumented policy change by an increasingly capricious Twitter, a Twitter we no longer recognize as trustworthy or want to work with month.
… if you were subscribed to Twitterrific for iOS, we would ask that you consider not requesting a refund from Apple. The loss of continued and recurring revenue from Twitterrific will already significantly hurt our business, and any refund will come directly out of our pockets, not Twitter or Apple.
Simply put, thousands of refunds would be devastating for a small business like ours.”
Tweetbot is leaving Twitter
Tapbot, the makers of Tweetbot were also affected and forced to shut down their service.
The creators of Tweetbot he wrote:
“On January 12, 2023, without prior notice, Elon Musk ordered his Twitter employees to suspend access to third-party clients, which instantly blocked hundreds of thousands of users from accessing Twitter from your favorite customers.”
tapbot he tweeted an additional explanation:
“Say goodbye to Tweetbot.
We’ve been proud to serve you for the past 12 years, but due to circumstances beyond our control, we have to shut down Tweetbot.”
Twitter’s API policy does not affect other services
But there seems to be more to this story than what Jetpack and other apps and services shared.
Social sharing services such as Hootsuite and Buffer have reached agreements with Twitter and continue to offer Twitter tweet scheduling features.
An interesting twist in the Twitter API saga is that the social sharing app Buffer is not affected by this change.
Buffer has posted one update on your blog stating that the change to Twitter’s API will not affect its users.
Their announcement said that everything will continue to work as before.
Buffer wrote:
“We have a long-standing business relationship with Twitter built over the past 12 years and have worked directly with their team on the way forward.”
Tampon too tweeted this announcement Sunday, April 30, 2023:
“If you use Buffer for your Twitter account, we want you to know that Buffer users are not affected by any of the recent Twitter API changes.
Your Buffer account and Twitter connections will continue to work as usual for free and paid plans.
One has to ask, why was Buffer able to reach a deal and Jetpack not?
Jetpack Social
Jetpack is an all-in-one plugin that provides security, performance, and marketing-related functionalities that is available in a premium and free version.
The different components of the plugin exist in a standalone version that can be used in a modular fashion, allowing users to choose the features they need.
Jetpack Social is a component that provides social networking functionality to WordPress sites.
The plugin contains auto sharing features that unlocks automatic sharing of social media articles as well as scheduling of shares to the most popular social media websites.
The Social plugin shares posts to the following social media platforms:
Twitter will no longer be available for automatic sharing.
Jetpack announced that it will launch social sharing on Instagram and Mastodon.
Mastodon is a popular social media alternative to Twitter that has seen exponential growth since Twitter began to slowly unravel after Elon Musk took over, fired key employees across departments, and alienated the advertisers
Instagram is a very popular place to share photos and videos on social media.
It will be interesting to see how Jetpack Social intends to integrate text-based article posts for sharing on an image and video sharing platform.
Read the Jetpack announcement:
The end of automatic Twitter sharing
Featured image by Shutterstock/Cast Of Thousands
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