Top Tech News of the Week

#01

Twitter officially bans third-party clients with new developer rules

• Twitter has updated its developer rules to ban third-party clients, almost a week after it unceremoniously blocked the apps’ access to its platform, offering almost no explanation to what was going on
• The new rules state that you can’t use Twitter’s API or content to “create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.”
• The rules, updated on Thursday, make it clear what that means: “Twitter Applications” refers to the company’s “consumer facing products, services, applications, websites, web pages, platforms, and other offerings, including without limitation, those offered via https://twitter.com and Twitter’s mobile applications.” The clause banning alternative services was added to the rules with the most recent update,
• The statement was not positively received. Several commentators and developers pointed out the lack of clarity about what rules were actually being broken and the fact that the apps had been running for years before Elon Musk purchased Twitter and started espousing plans to turn it into an “everything app.”
• Money is likely one of the reasons behind the rule change and third-party client ban. Twitter has been struggling financially since Musk took over, saddling it with billions in debt, and third-party clients likely earn it less money than its first-party one.
• There seemingly hasn’t been any official announcement of the rule change, either from Twitter Dev or Elon Musk. Twitter doesn’t have a communications department to contact.
• Twitterrific was a macOS and iOS client for the social networking site Twitter created by The Iconfactory and was the first Twitter desktop client to come to macOS. They announced ending of it here. Different other clients like Fenice (UWP Client for Windows 10), Fenix, Tweetbot are also impacted by this change.

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#02

Amazon Begins Another Round Of Job Cuts As It Lays Off More Than 18,000 People

• Amazon has started notifying employees affected by its new round of layoffs, part of its plan to reduce its headcount by around 18,000 people.
• It’s unclear exactly how many workers are being impacted in this particular round, but the company laid off 2,300 employees in Washington
• In November, Amazon started its first round of layoffs. At the time, there were reports that around 10,000 people would be affected, including members of its hardware and services, human resources, and retail teams.
• Amazon’s layoffs are some of the largest in the industry in raw numbers, but the company is far from alone in cutting jobs.

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