Under Musk, X denies API access to academics who study misinformation

Academic researchers are complaining that X has repeatedly refused them access to its API, limiting their ability to conduct studies on the platform.

Researchers who study social media platforms, such as X (formerly Twitter), have found it more difficult to conduct their work since Musk bought the platform in October 2022 for $44 billion. In March 2023, the company removed what had previously been free access to Twitter’s API, or application programming interface, which provides data to researchers studying social media and misinformation. In its place, Musk instigated a paid access regime that started at $42,000 a month—immediately pricing out almost all academics.

Following complaints from researchers about an information vacuum—and in response to regulatory requirements outlined by the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA)—X pivoted late last year to start once again offering researchers access to its API. However, it appears to have granted precious few, if any, API-access requests since that time.

Among those who applied for access when it opened is Steve Rathje, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University. “I was initially very excited when the Digital Services Act that was recently passed in Europe mandated access to data for researchers studying systemic risks to the European Union, such as misinformation,” he says. “Data access for researchers is essential to understand the potential harms of social media, and there’s so much we still don’t know about social media’s potential harms because we don’t have enough data.”

Rathje applied to X for access in late November, and explained his research to the company in a series of conversations. But the company went radio silent in January, then finally turning down his application in late February. “They offered to have me access data for $42,000 per month through their paid API in their rejection email,” Rathje says.

The same process has played out with other academics, including Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, a computational social scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. His free API access was removed once Musk took over the platform. The arrival of the DSA, and particularly a single article within it—Article 40.12—was a welcome moment. “This specific paragraph is saying that all the very big platforms, if they have public data, need to provide this public data as a convenient API access for research purposes,” says Lorenz-Spreen. He applied under that article in November. 

“My request was denied,” he says. “I’m not 100% sure why.” Lorenz-Spreen received what he deems a “rather superficial” statement that his request didn’t fulfill the requirements of the DSA. (X did not respond to a request for comment.)

Fast Company has seen an email chain between the X API team and a third academic researcher over the course of several weeks, which follows the same procedure that Lorenz-Spreen and Rathje described: The academic outlines their field of work, is asked to clarify some questions and provide more detail about the purposes of their research, and after that is still given a boilerplate response.

The response reads: “Based on your application, it does not appear that your proposed use of X data is solely for performing research that contributes to the detection, identification, and understanding of systemic risks in the EU as described by Art. 34 of the Digital Services Act.” Article 34 of the act compels platforms to monitor and assess any systemic risks of their platform’s existence.

Similar responses have been received by a slew of academics who have taken to social media to share their frustrations.“I have not heard of a single researcher who has received access to data,” Rathje says.

A European Commission spokesperson told Fast Company that it had launched an investigation in mid-December 2023 to assess whether X had breached the DSA in this regard, as well as in other areas of concern, which is still ongoing. “The opening of proceedings means that the Commission will investigate X’s systems and policies related to certain suspected infringements,” the spokesperson says. “The Commission will continue monitoring X’s compliance with all obligations under the DSA, and if it has suspicions of other infringements, it will take the necessary steps.”

The spokesperson added: “Suspected shortcomings in giving researchers access to X’s publicly accessible data—Article 40.12 of the DSA—is indeed part of this ongoing investigation.” 

The decisions to deny access have baffled academics, including Swapneel Mehta, a postdoctorate research associate at both Boston University and MIT. Mehta had previously led a team of students to identify threat actors on Twitter, reporting hundreds of thousands of accounts to the company’s site integrity team for review. Like many of his peers, Mehta’s API access request was rejected. “It seems counterintuitive to block data access especially for academics like us supporting Twitter’s own efforts at content integrity for free,” he says.

But absent good policing of breaches of the DSA, platforms can decline requests that otherwise seem to be ones they should be approving under the DSA terms. “The law is very new, and there’s a lot of room for interpretation,” says Lorenz-Spreen. “How all this enforcement will look is still quite under construction.”

Academic researchers are complaining that X has repeatedly refused them access to its API, limiting their ability to conduct studies on the platform.

Researchers who study social media platforms, such as X (formerly Twitter), have found it more difficult to conduct their work since Musk bought the platform in October 2022 for $44 billion. In March 2023, the company removed what had previously been free access to Twitter’s API, or application programming interface, which provides data to researchers studying social media and misinformation. In its place, Musk instigated a paid access regime that started at $42,000 a month—immediately pricing out almost all academics.

Following complaints from researchers about an information vacuum—and in response to regulatory requirements outlined by the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA)—X pivoted late last year to start once again offering researchers access to its API. However, it appears to have granted precious few, if any, API-access requests since that time.

Among those who applied for access when it opened is Steve Rathje, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University. “I was initially very excited when the Digital Services Act that was recently passed in Europe mandated access to data for researchers studying systemic risks to the European Union, such as misinformation,” he says. “Data access for researchers is essential to understand the potential harms of social media, and there’s so much we still don’t know about social media’s potential harms because we don’t have enough data.”

Rathje applied to X for access in late November, and explained his research to the company in a series of conversations. But the company went radio silent in January, then finally turning down his application in late February. “They offered to have me access data for $42,000 per month through their paid API in their rejection email,” Rathje says.

The same process has played out with other academics, including Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, a computational social scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. His free API access was removed once Musk took over the platform. The arrival of the DSA, and particularly a single article within it—Article 40.12—was a welcome moment. “This specific paragraph is saying that all the very big platforms, if they have public data, need to provide this public data as a convenient API access for research purposes,” says Lorenz-Spreen. He applied under that article in November. 

“My request was denied,” he says. “I’m not 100% sure why.” Lorenz-Spreen received what he deems a “rather superficial” statement that his request didn’t fulfill the requirements of the DSA. (X did not respond to a request for comment.)

Fast Company has seen an email chain between the X API team and a third academic researcher over the course of several weeks, which follows the same procedure that Lorenz-Spreen and Rathje described: The academic outlines their field of work, is asked to clarify some questions and provide more detail about the purposes of their research, and after that is still given a boilerplate response.

The response reads: “Based on your application, it does not appear that your proposed use of X data is solely for performing research that contributes to the detection, identification, and understanding of systemic risks in the EU as described by Art. 34 of the Digital Services Act.” Article 34 of the act compels platforms to monitor and assess any systemic risks of their platform’s existence.

Similar responses have been received by a slew of academics who have taken to social media to share their frustrations.“I have not heard of a single researcher who has received access to data,” Rathje says.

A European Commission spokesperson told Fast Company that it had launched an investigation in mid-December 2023 to assess whether X had breached the DSA in this regard, as well as in other areas of concern, which is still ongoing. “The opening of proceedings means that the Commission will investigate X’s systems and policies related to certain suspected infringements,” the spokesperson says. “The Commission will continue monitoring X’s compliance with all obligations under the DSA, and if it has suspicions of other infringements, it will take the necessary steps.”

The spokesperson added: “Suspected shortcomings in giving researchers access to X’s publicly accessible data—Article 40.12 of the DSA—is indeed part of this ongoing investigation.” 

The decisions to deny access have baffled academics, including Swapneel Mehta, a postdoctorate research associate at both Boston University and MIT. Mehta had previously led a team of students to identify threat actors on Twitter, reporting hundreds of thousands of accounts to the company’s site integrity team for review. Like many of his peers, Mehta’s API access request was rejected. “It seems counterintuitive to block data access especially for academics like us supporting Twitter’s own efforts at content integrity for free,” he says.

But absent good policing of breaches of the DSA, platforms can decline requests that otherwise seem to be ones they should be approving under the DSA terms. “The law is very new, and there’s a lot of room for interpretation,” says Lorenz-Spreen. “How all this enforcement will look is still quite under construction.”