Enlarge (credit: CHANDAN KHANNA / Contributor | AFP)
Of all the changes Elon Musk has made to Twitter, blocking emergency and public transit services from tweeting automated alerts might have been his least popular. User backlash roared, as National Weather Service accounts got suspended. Then, one of the country's largest public transit services, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), had so much trouble tweeting, it decided to quit posting updates to Twitter.
Alarmed Twitter users who depend on these updates can perhaps rest easier now, though. Musk has abruptly reversed course. On Tuesday afternoon, the @TwitterDev account confirmed that, once again, at least some public services have been granted free access to Twitter's API, so they can continue tweeting out important updates.
"One of the most important use cases for the Twitter API has always been public utility," @TwitterDev's tweet said. "Verified gov or publicly owned services who tweet weather alerts, transport updates and emergency notifications may use the API, for these critical purposes, for free."
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