Twitter just got a big jolt, after Microsoft’s advertising platform announced that it would stop supporting Twitter. In a message on the support page for its advertising platform, the tech titan announced that it will “no longer support Twitter,” which means companies can no longer use Microsoft’s platform to manage their tweets or the engagement on the microblogging site.
Is it a coincidence that this comes on the heels of Twitter’s decision to put its API behind a hefty paywall, wherein enterprises and research institutions have to shell out $42,000/month to gain access to the API? The decision is yours, but it is clear that the changes made by the micro-blogging site requiring payment to access its API just cost it one of the biggest companies in the tech industry.
Microsoft is not immediately dropping Twitter from its Microsoft Advertising plan – the company announced that users will not be able to access Twitter through its social management tool starting on April 25th, 2023. Furthermore, they will be unable to create and manage drafts or tweets, view past tweets and engagement, and schedule tweets as well. Microsoft’s Digital Marketing Center (DMC) will also cease its support for Twitter on the same date.
In contrast, other social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram continue to be available on Microsoft’s advertising platform, so companies that use Microsoft Advertising will still be able to manage and create content on those platforms. Losing access to Twitter through the DMC’s social media management tool now means that advertisers will need to seek alternative platforms to manage and track Twitter campaigns, as well as adjust their strategies.
Twitter’s response to this development is unsurprising – CEO Elon Musk threatened to take legal action against the tech behemoth, claiming that Microsoft “trained illegally using Twitter data” and that it was “lawsuit time.”
They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2023
For a high-profile company like Microsoft, the amount it would have to pay ($42000/month) is obviously not a major strain on its pockets (which run deep). However, it can be speculated that the company is not interested in spending the money to access the API, which comes as a blow to the platform. It has been desperate for new sources of revenue, and the social media company had earlier attempted to diversify its streams of revenue via a revamped Twitter Blue (when more than half of Twitter’s top 1000 advertisers were quickly abandoning ship), but that created its fair of problems (but that’s another story).
This makes Microsoft the latest company to abandon the platform – earlier, smaller developers like Tweetbot maker Tapbots left the platform and had to close down their Twitter-based applications because of the exorbitant rates charged by Twitter.
