Microsoft drops Twitter from advert platform, Musk threatens suit

Tech company, Microsoft, has announced moves to drop social media service, Twitter, from its advertisement platform, Smart Campaigns.

In a release shared via the company’s website, it was stated that the platform which enables ad buyers to manage their various social media accounts will no longer support Twitter as of April 25.

“Starting on April 25, 2023, Smart Campaigns with Multi-platform will no longer support Twitter,” the release read. “As of April 25, 2023, you’ll be unable to: access your Twitter account through our social management tool, create and manage drafts or tweets, view past tweets and engagement, and schedule tweets.”

However, other social media platforms such as Meta’s Facebook, and Instagram, as well as Microsoft’s LinkedIn will continue to be available on the advert service.
While no explanations were given, Microsoft’s decision comes after Twitter announced fees for access to its Application Programming Interface.

Twitter’s API, which provides third parties with broad access to data that users have chosen to share publicly, was previously free.
However, the company announced recently that it would begin charging a monthly fee of $42,000 for access in a bid to raise its revenue.

Reacting to the news on Wednesday, Twitter’s CEO, Elon Musk, made it known that he will be taking legal action. He also alleged that Microsoft illegally used Twitter’s data for “training”.

“They trained illegally, using Twitter’s data. Lawsuit time,” he tweeted on Wednesday.

When asked by a tweep, @Krassestien, if he has other long-term plans such as charging for access to its API will reduce traffic to the platform, Musk replied that he is open to ideas.

He however doubled down on his claims that the IT company was “ripping off” data from Twitter.

“I’m open to ideas, but ripping off the Twitter database, demonetizing it (removing ads) and then selling our data to others isn’t a winning solution,” he said.


PUNCH