data jungle adventures

Prior to this change, researchers could access a large volume of tweets and associated metadata through Twitter’s API for free. This data was often used for research in various fields, including social science, marketing, and computer science, among others. Researchers could use this data to analyze patterns in public opinion, track the spread of misinformation, or develop machine learning algorithms.

However, with the end of the free API, researchers will no longer have direct access to the same volume of Twitter data as before. Instead, they will need to purchase access to the Twitter API through one of Twitter’s approved data providers, such as Gnip or DataSift, which may be expensive and may provide more limited access to data.

“The decision to end free access to Twitter API will greatly impact researchers who study hate speech online, especially independent researchers and those in the developing world. Its impact will be profoundly felt in India, where hate speech is proliferating on Twitter at a very alarming rate

https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/14/twitters-restrictive-api-may-leave-researchers-out-in-the-cold/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20decision%20to%20end%20free,at%20a%20very%20alarming%20rate.

When the API announcement came, researchers were already feeling unmoored as a result of changes at Twitter after billionaire Elon Musk bought the company last October. Using the API have yielded some worrisome glitches. For example, a program that uses earthquake-related keywords in Turkish doesn’t always return all of the tweets that he sees on his own Twitter feed — even if he searches with the exact words of the tweet. And a few times, he has spotted duplicate tweets in his data. “Both problems are new,” he says.

This change may have several implications for research. For example, it may limit the ability of researchers to collect large amounts of data, making it more difficult to identify trends or to conduct longitudinal studies. It may also limit the ability of smaller research teams or individual researchers with limited budgets to conduct studies using Twitter data.

Independent research has been a key factor to make Twitter more useful and less toxic. The company has displayed multiple projects in areas like healthcare, online hate speech and climate change using Twitter data.

The Twitter Moderation Research Consortium (TMRC), invites members from academia, civil society, nongovernmental organizations and journalism to study the platform’s governance issues. But ever since Musk took over, the program has stalled and employees who worked on it have left.

The Tesla CEO himself has used data from Botometer, a tool to measure bot followers on Twitter accounts, during the public spats that led to the acquisition of the company. The tool was made by the Observatory on Social Media of Indiana University. But the tool’s future might be jeopardized by the new API announcement.

Additionally, it may affect the generalizability of studies that rely on Twitter data, as the data provided through the API may be biased or incomplete. For example, Twitter data is known to overrepresent certain demographics, such as younger and more politically engaged individuals.

Overall, the end of Twitter’s free API will likely have a significant impact on research that relies on Twitter data, and may require researchers to adjust their research methods or seek alternative sources of data.