IFTTT forced to remove Twitter triggers on September 27th to comply with new API policies

The internet service glue product IFTTT has been forced to remove its Twitter triggers after recent changes to Twitter’s API policies. The change was confirmed in an email sent out to IFTTT users today (Thanks to Federico Viticci for the contents of the email.)

Apparently triggers that allow the syndication of tweets out to other services or locations will be removed, while actions that post new tweets to Twitter will remain. You won’t be able to suck down your tweets for archiving or cross-posting any more. So actions remain that post to Twitter, but triggers are gone.

IFTTT CEO Linden Tibbets:

In recent weeks, Twitter announced policy changes* that will affect how applications and users like yourself can interact with Twitter’s data. As a result of these changes, on September 27th we will be removing all Twitter Triggers, disabling your ability to push tweets to places like email, Evernote and Facebook. All Personal and Shared Recipes using a Twitter Trigger will also be removed. Recipes using Twitter Actions and your ability to post new tweets via IFTTT will continue to work just fine.

The email mentions Section 4A (which isn’t new, but is newly enforced) of Twitter’s new API terms and the new Developer Display Requirements (previously recommendations) as reasons for the removal of the triggers, which will be gone as of September 27th.

Tibbets continues, saying that the tool wants to “empower anyone to create connections between literally anything,” adding diplomatically, “we’ve still got a long way to go, and to get there we need to make sure that the types of connections that IFTTT enables are aligned with how the original creators want their tools and services to be used.”

“We at IFTTT are big Twitter fans and, like yourself, we’ve gotten a lot of value out of the Recipes that use Twitter Triggers,” says Tibbets. “We’re sad to see them go, but remain excited to build features that work within Twitter’s new policy. ”

We’ve used IFTTT to do all kinds of neat stuff with Twitter, like saving an archive of Tweets to Dropbox and keeping up with the Olympics. Rapid inclusion of new services like App.net into the API also endear us to the tool. Unfortunately, this removal will break a huge number of our most loved tools, which really sucks.

The introduction of a new set of rules surrounding Twitter’s v1.1 API set off a lot of discussion about its new direction this past month. We took a stab at explaining Twitter’s motives for the move, which we believe coincide with its desire for more users and more control over the way that Twitter gets viewed.

This is Twitter’s hostility towards external developers — even though it claims it wants to foster ones that aren’t clients — directly affecting users of apps built on its API. It’s unfortunate that Twitter would allow this to continue to happen.

Oh, and Twitter just outlawed gif avatars, too. What next?

See also: Why IFTTT being forced to remove its Twitter triggers is a red alert for developers

Image Credit: ERIC FEFERBERG/Getty