This move comes in the wake of the increased scrutiny that social networking sites such as Twitter are facing over the potential role that their algorithms are playing in the spread of disinformation and hate speech.
Twitter will allow developers to access data on up to 2 million tweets per month at no cost, through the company’s application programming interface (API).
Twitter's head of product for its developer platform, Amir Shevat, hailed a change in API policy to allow for more users, including removing restrictions on competing with the platform: "I want everyone to be able to define their preferences and have their own curated content that's adjusted to them," he said, adding: "We can only do this if developers are in on it."
An example of an app built with Twitter data is Block Party, which allows users to filter out content they do not wish to see.
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