It’s Academic Researchers’ Turn to Tap Twitter API v2

When Twitter introduced Twitter API v2 last July—the first complete rebuild of its application-programming interface since a major update in 2012—the social network pledged to add a specific track for academic researchers, and the company made good on that pledge Tuesday. Twitter developer platform staff product manager Adam Tornes said in a press call Monday that Tuesday’s steps mark “the next major milestone for Twitter API v2. The decision to invest in the academic research community was rooted in the value of its work to Twitter. Academic researchers represent one of the largest groups on our API, and data from Twitter is used in research across vast majority of academic disciplines. For too long, we have ignored their unique circumstances and differentiated needs and capabilities.” Academic researchers have been using data from the public conversation since the Twitter API was initially released in 2006, but access has not come easy for that sector. Twitter developer platform senior program manager Leanne Trujillo said during the press call, “We heard that the pricing models of our API were prohibitive to the limited funding many academics have. Many academics found their needs in the same buckets as major businesses. Some researchers had to find work-arounds. We built a free solution for researchers to get the data they need.” The social network has taken other steps over the past year to improve the experience for academic researchers. It rolled out a dedicated page in January, and its developer policy was updated last March to make it easier to validate or reproduce the research of others by using Twitter data. An endpoint enabling approved developers and researchers to study public conversation about Covid-19 in real-time was released late last April. And Twitter began testing the product track being introduced Tuesday in a private beta last October, in order to gain feedback before rolling it out widely. Trujillo said during the press call, “There’s never been a more important time to be transparent and accountable. The events of the past year have made that clear.” Starting Tuesday, qualified researchers will gain access to all endpoints that have been released thus far for Twitter API v2. Most important, they gain access to the full history of public conversation via the full archive search endpoint, which had previously been limited to premium or enterprise customers. This marks a significant upgrade from their previous access to the recent search endpoint, which only furnished them with tweets from the past seven days. Trujillo said during the press call, “Most research takes place after the fact and requires access to historical data, previously limited to paid business customers. Researchers had only been able to go back seven days, and they frequently asked about access to full historical data.” The monthly tweet cap that researchers can access rose by 20 times, from 500,000 on the standard product track to 10 million. Tuesday’s rollout also includes more precise filtering capabilities across all endpoints in Twitter API v2, enabling researchers to focus in on only the data that is relevant to what they are studying, “minimizing noise and data cleaning requirements,” Tornes said during the press call. And new technical and methodological guides will help them navigate the new options that are available to them. New and existing Twitter developers and academic researchers must apply for this new track via the academic research application, and the eligibility requirements are: Researchers must be affiliated with an academic institution or university as a master’s student, doctoral candidate, post-doc, faculty or research-focused employee.They must present a clearly defined research objective with specific plans for how they intend to use, analyze and share Twitter data from their research.The product track can only be used for non-commercial purposes. Tornes said during the press call that the application process “helps Twitter review credentials and details about project, and verify that data is used for non-commercial purposes, and how data will be shared.” In response to questions during the press call about how tweets from suspended accounts will be handled—and specific queries about the highest-profile suspended account, that of former President Donald Trump—Tornes said suspended accounts are not included in the data available to researchers, who can only access publicly available data. Trujillo added that Twitter is “having conversations internally” about how to handle @realDonaldTrump for these purposes. She also summed up Twitter’s goals with Tuesday’s release and for the future: “We wanted to enable more researchers to get started with the Twitter API. The majority of academic researchers are not developers by trade This is a starting point and a foundation for more. We are exploring ways that researchers around the world can better share with Twitter and the greater academic community. We are on a mission to inspire, enable and empower academic researchers to study the public conversation on Twitter. Helping academic researchers succeed is critical to the public good and the public conversation.”

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It’s Academic Researchers’ Turn to Tap Twitter API v2

Qualified applicants will gain access to the full history of public conversation on the social network

David Cohen

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David Cohen