X makes it expensive to send links through its API

Social network X has made it expensive to send links through its API. The change was made to prevent spam and “malicious vectors,” the company said. The new pricing increased the cost from $0.01 per link to $0.20

Last week, the account of producer X has been sent changes in its API pricing. The two most common changes were the increase in the cost of sending a link and the increase in the cost of shipping, which increased from $0.01 to $0.15 per post.

The move could prevent many publications from posting links. For example, a tech news aggregator Techmeme he stopped adding links to original articles in his posts on X this week. Instead, the text says “Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and all the news!”

Earlier this week, Techmeme said that price increases were one of the reasons for removing the links, which it said may return later. The publication also mentioned and the Nieman Lab study, which found that including links and posts on X caused engagement to drop.

X’s product manager, Nikita Bier, disputed the results of the study and said that the issues discussed in the study were “topical text + communication” that was not documented elsewhere. He too he answered to Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera, that “no there is no code blocking links.”

He added that Techmeme should post a screenshot of the event with the article and a link.

Earlier in the week, Rivera reacted to the changes in API pricing and said that this will force media outlets to pay hundreds of dollars or send it manually.

“I think they’re saying if you have a news page that links to tweets, and you don’t write them by hand, you have to pay X hundreds of dollars a month?” he they argued.

The controversy over X limiting the reach of articles and links is not unusual. A few years ago, a company to cut the headlines from the link views on the platform but they restored the change a few weeks later.