Twitter removes paywall system from application programming interface: Now emergency services and transport agencies will be able to access API for free

Twitter on Wednesday (March 3) backtracked from its decision to put its Application Programming Interface (API) behind a paywall. Transport agencies and emergency service providers have been given permission to access their API for free.

Twitter stopped accessing its API for free in February. The company instead launched a paid version for developers around the world. Following this decision, many emergency services and transport agencies were having trouble posting alerts on the platform.

The US Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) also experienced disruption to their API access. Now Elon Musk has changed his decision for some users.

The free version of the Twitter API will allow up to 1,500 tweets per month.

In a tweet by Twitter Dev, it was said that the Twitter API has always been a public utility platform in the most urgent cases. Verified government or public service providing agencies that tweet weather alerts, transport updates and emergency information can use the API for free. According to media reports, with the free version of Twitter's API, users will be able to post only 1,500 tweets per month.