Twitter's $42K API Access Fee? A Call to Action for Steemians

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A major alteration to Twitter's access policy, which introduces a whopping $42,000 fee for API usage, is currently causing ripples throughout the worlds of academia and crypto analysis. The ramifications of this policy shift are likely to alter the landscape of research undertaken on this globally recognised social media titan. For enthusiasts and active users of Steemit or Steem, known as Steemians, an awareness and understanding of this change is vital. It stands to dramatically affect their promotion strategies and research methods.

Twitter's New Access Plan and Its Impact

Twitter, recently purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, decided to monetize its APIs, a decision that has far-reaching implications. The most impacted service is Decahose, a streaming service that gave scientists access to around 10% of all tweets in real-time. The service has been critical for research on a host of subjects, ranging from law enforcement activities and political misinformation to emergency response and extremism.

However, with the new change, anyone using Decahose would have to pay an "enterprise" fee of $42,000 per month. Moreover, the available data will drop from 10% of total live tweets to a paltry 0.3%. This means less data for researchers and an increased financial burden.

Why This Matters to Steemians

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So why should Steemians care? For one, Steemit operates on a similar social media paradigm as Twitter, albeit powered by blockchain technology. Twitter's decision to charge a high fee for API access could potentially limit the free flow of information that has long been the internet's strength. If such a practice becomes a trend among social media platforms, it could significantly affect how Steemians interact with each other and the broader internet community.

More importantly, many Steemians use data from services like Decahose for their own research, analysis, and content creation. With the significant price hike and data restriction, the range of research opportunities could be drastically reduced.

Promoting Steemit in a Changed Landscape

Steemians who promote Steemit or Steem can use this development to highlight the advantages of decentralized social media platforms. In stark contrast to Twitter's restrictive measures, Steemit's data can be freely accessed and analyzed by anyone, making it a more open and transparent platform. Steemians can argue that this openness promotes a more egalitarian knowledge sharing and research environment.

Moreover, Steemians should remind others that Steemit's decentralized nature makes it far less likely to enact restrictive policies like Twitter's API access fee. Unlike Twitter, Steemit is not controlled by a single entity or billionaire but rather is governed by its community of users. This decentralization could be emphasized to attract new users who are disillusioned by the recent changes to Twitter's data access policies.

A Call to Arms

This change in Twitter’s policy should serve as a call to arms for Steemians. Steemians should continue to promote the benefits of decentralized platforms and blockchain technology. It's an opportunity to show the world that there is an alternative to centralized social media platforms and their often high-handed policies.

However, Steemians should also see this as a call to be vigilant. They must ensure that Steemit remains open, transparent, and accessible, preserving the fundamental principles upon which it was built. They should remain actively involved in the platform's development and governance, ensuring it continues to respect user freedoms and does not adopt similar restrictive policies.

The Bigger Picture

Finally, Steemians must not lose sight of the broader implications of Twitter's new API access fee. This change doesn't just affect researchers and academia; it potentially impedes global research efforts to study critical societal issues, including election misinformation and social manipulation. It limits the ability to study internet-related crimes such as human trafficking and financial scams. The importance of open and transparent platforms like Steemit cannot be overstated in the current climate. Steemians are at the forefront of championing such platforms, and their role in ensuring the unimpeded exchange of information and knowledge is more critical than ever.

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_{[Reference : https://cointelegraph.com/news/twitter-s-42k-api-access-plan-could-harm-crypto-research]}