Researchers using Twitter’s previously free Decahose data service will soon have to pay a $42,000 monthly fee to continue using the service and keep their data.
Decahose, a streaming service that gives scientists unlimited access to about 10% of all tweets in real time, was support for academic research on a myriad of topics, including emergency response, law enforcement activities, political disinformation, and extremism.
Earlier this year, due to the purchase of Elon Musk’s company, Twitter he announced it would begin charging for access to its numerous APIs, with fees ranging from $100 to $42,000 per month.
We are looking for new ways for Academia to continue to serve this community. Meanwhile, Free, Basic, and Enterprise tiers are available for academics. Stay tuned @TwitterDev learn more.
— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) March 29, 2023
Under the new rules, academics and universities using Decahose’s service would have to pay an “enterprise” fee of $42,000 a month, and the amount of data available would supposedly down from 10% of total live tweets to 0.3%.
This follows from a report by a British publication and news, researchers were recently emailed explanatory that they can either start paying for their access or delete all the data they have obtained:
“Researchers who do not sign the new agreement ‘will be required to delete all Twitter data stored and stored on your systems.’ Researchers will be required to send screenshots “that demonstrate proof of removal.” They were given 30 days after their contract expired to complete the process.”
The timing of the change is notable as it comes just days after Musk joined Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in announces his bid for the White House in the 2024 US presidential election.
If carried out as planned, the upcoming change in access to Decahose could derail global research efforts to study election disinformation and social manipulation ahead of the 2024 elections as they take place. described as one of the most politically active social media platforms in the world.
In addition to disinformation research, the price changes would also limit the ability of academia to study Internet-related crimes such as human trafficking and financial fraud. In addition, he has Decahose served as one of the Internet’s largest repositories of human sentiment—a data source that powers insights and predictions on nearly every imaginable social-related research topic.
Related: Elon Musk threatens to sue Microsoft, AI trained on Twitter data claims
Much of the data used to be studies cryptocurrency sentiment comes from the data powers of Twitter and Reddit, for example. By limiting access to this data, Twitter is potentially hindering both ongoing research and preventing new efforts.
One explanation for the price hike could include Musk’s continued efforts to ensure that tech companies don’t use Twitter data to train their AI systems.
