

IFTTT.com forced to pull Twitter triggers - robgough

This is the email they've been sending out to users:<p>Dear robgough,<p>In recent weeks, Twitter announced policy changes* that will affect how applications and users like yourself can interact with Twitter's data. As a result of these changes, on September 27th we will be removing all Twitter Triggers, disabling your ability to push tweets to places like email, Evernote and Facebook. All Personal and Shared Recipes using a Twitter Trigger will also be removed. Recipes using Twitter Actions and your ability to post new tweets via IFTTT will continue to work just fine.<p>At IFTTT, first and foremost, we want to empower anyone to create connections between literally anything. We've still got a long way to go, and to get there we need to make sure that the types of connections that IFTTT enables are aligned with how the original creators want their tools and services to be used.<p>We at IFTTT are big Twitter fans and, like yourself, we've gotten a lot of value out of the Recipes that use Twitter Triggers. We're sad to see them go, but remain excited to build features that work within Twitter's new policy. Thank you for your support and for understanding these upcoming changes. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at support@ifttt.com.<p>Linden Tibbets 
IFTTT CEO<p>*These Twitter policy changes specifically disallow uploading Twitter Content to a "cloud based service" (Section 4A https://dev.twitter.com/terms/api-terms) and include stricter enforcement of the Developer Display Requirements (https://dev.twitter.com/terms/display-requirements).
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fudged71
Sorry Twitter, but Fuck You. You went from being useless to useful then back
to useless.

I had set up 10 different actions using the Twitter IFTTT interaction. These
actions specifically notify me of emergency alerts and breaking news through
the Pushover Channel.

I have alerts for breaking news from local media, I have emergency alerts from
my university campus, and I have emergency weather/safety-related alerts.

Without much technical knowledge, I know of no easier way to receive these
alerts, since they are being posted specifically to Twitter.

I didn't care too much about the restrictions on 3rd party clients. But this
is directly influencing how I perceive my personal safety in this tech-filled
world. As soon as we convinced people to post important messages to twitter,
we remove the ability to notify ourselves of them? That's malicious.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I sympathize with how this inconveniences you and you make some excellent
points about emergency information being trapped with inside Twitter... but
from their perspective you're just not an engaged enough user. You should have
your nose in your Twitter stream all the time so you don't miss these kinds of
important tweets (or tweets from sponsors about the new Ford Focus).

That people can consume content without consuming it from them is _exactly_
what they want to avoid.

~~~
001sky
_You should have your nose in your Twitter stream all the time so you don't
miss these kinds of important tweets_

\-- Signal to noise ratio. Needed in any emergency.

But this in conflict with Twitter's biz model/direction. That's the problem.
This is a negative, step back for a use of the service more valuable to
society. The "eyballs" to sell "stuff" biz model is not a great contributor to
civiliation. Arguably, twitter has more potential.

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driverdan
The terms in question:

"You may export or extract non-programmatic, GUI-driven Twitter Content as a
PDF or spreadsheet by using "save as" or similar functionality. Exporting
Twitter Content to a datastore as a service or other cloud based service,
however, is not permitted."

So do I own my tweets or not? If I own them, can't I decide what to do with
them, such as storing them in a cloud service? Twitter can't have it both
ways.

~~~
siculars
My thoughts exactly. Do I own my tweets or not? I don't see how having a
service outbound my tweets anywhere would be a violation.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
You need to post them into a service that you have control over (maybe an open
source microblog that runs on your server for example) and then cross-post
_into_ Twitter.

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AdamTReineke
This is really annoying. I've been using IFTTT to e-mail all of my tweets and
mentions to a dedicated e-mail address for archival purposes. Looks like I
need to quit publishing via Twitter if I can't keep backups.

~~~
svankie
I've been doing a very similar thing (but appending all mentions to a note on
Evernote). I found it pretty useful.

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graue
Suggestion for anyone pissed off (at Twitter) by this: Check out
<https://rstat.us/> . It's a completely open microblogging platform, and at
least for now, you can log in using your Twitter account (via OAuth) and
cross-post all your Rstat.us updates to Twitter.

I've been meaning to try it for some time and this news compelled me to do it.
Seems to work fine. You can follow me there if you like:
<https://rstat.us/users/graue> (not really trying to promote myself though, my
updates are pretty boring) Also, I have no relationship with the people who
made this site, but they seem pretty passionate about open platforms.

I don't think IFTTT supports Rstat.us right now, but it would be great to see
them add it.

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seltzered_
If I'm understanding this straight:

google+: a network that restricts that people _write_ via their website/apps.

twitter: a network that is now starting to restrict people to _read_ only via
their website/apps.

technology does evolve and diverge in lots of directions.

~~~
benaiah
Except Google+'s non-writeability is more a symptom of Google's crappy API
support than anything else. They built a product, and didn't really put any
time in to make it a service or a platform.

I think it's apathy rather than malice on Google+'s part.

~~~
ihsw
Indeed, Google Maps is just about the only polished public API they have. It's
really unfortunate that Google is so unfriendly to developers regarding their
products.

~~~
Spoom
Google derives their primary revenue from advertising. APIs allow developers
to sidestep advertising in displaying Google's content. Ergo, it is not in
Google's best interest to allow easy free access to their content, via an API
or otherwise, in a place where they cannot control how the content is
displayed.

I don't completely agree with this reasoning but I can see why they don't just
throw build APIs everywhere.

~~~
seltzered_
yep. And honestly, I've been okay with google's model so far, at least until
their websites and apps become littered with ads like facebook.

Aside from companies (and sociopath friends) using hootsuite, I've never
really heard of anyone using a third-party facebook website or app to post.

------
ColinWright
See also the discussion here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4550625>

------
mehdim
Net Neutrality is the reason the Internet has driven online economic
innovation. It protects our right to use any equipment, content, application
or service without interference from the network provider. With Net
Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data — not choose which data to
privilege with higher-quality service and which to demote to a slower lane.

This would be the same for APIs, which are too often driven only by business
when investors strategies come in the place. Stay open for an API without
discrimination and tiering on data access and re-use is giving trust to all
your ecosystem for building future business on it. Don't respect it is
enfrenging the API neutrality concept.

More on what would be API neutrality here :
<http://api500.com/post/31465739810/what-is-api-neutrality>

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proksoup
No new information here, surprised this didn't hit sooner when twitter first
changed their policy?

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biot
Presumably one can still get the content from <http://gnip.com/> just not
directly via Twitter's API?

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guscost
It's war! Kinda.

