Twitter kills 143,000 apps, charts new rules for developers
San Francisco, July 25 : Twitter removed more than 143,000 apps between April and June which violated its policies, the company has announced, saying it is further investing in building improved tools and processes to stop malicious apps faster.
As part of its clean-up process, the micro-blogging platform also introduced a new way for all developers to request access to Twitter's application programming interfaces (APIs)
"These changes enable us to have more visibility and control over how developers use our platform and public data from the people using our service," wrote Yoel Roth and Rob Johnson from Twitter in a blog post late on Tuesday.
According to media reports, Twitter suspended more than 70 million fake accounts in May and June in a massive drive to clear out bots and trolls on the platform. Twitter currently has nearly 330 million monthly active users (MAUs).
The company also announced a new developer account application process that include use case reviews and policy compliance checks, as well as new protections to prevent the registration of spammy and low-quality apps.
"Starting today, all new requests for access to Twitter's standard and premium APIs are required to go through this process," Twitter said.
Following application approval, the developers may be required to undergo additional rigorous policy reviews if they change app's use or request access to additional features, "including the ability to post content to Twitter frequently or at high volumes".
"We're also limiting the default number of apps you may have registered by a single developer account to 10. Developers who need to register more than 10 apps can request permission using the API Policy support form," Twitter informed.
"If you already have more than 10 apps registered, you can continue to use them as long as they comply with our rules but you won't be able to register new apps until you either request permission for additional apps or delete unused ones," it added.
On September 10, Twitter will add new default app-level rate limits that will apply to all requests to create tweets, retweets, likes, follows, or Direct Messages.
By default, an app (across all of its users) will be limited to 300 tweets and retweets (combined) per three hours; 1,000 likes per 24 hours; 1,000 follows per 24 hours and 15,000 Direct Messages per 24 hours.
Twitter also introduced a new option for people to report suspected violations of its platform policies.
"You can use the 'Report a bad app' option in our Help Centre to report uses of our APIs which produce spam, invade user privacy, or otherwise violate our rules," Twitter noted.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
LPG crisis: Karnataka temples gear up to stock wooden logs for ‘Prasada’
Bengaluru (PTI): Temples in Karnataka have started preparations to stock wooden logs fearing that the LPG shortage could hamper the ‘Prasada’ preparation and distributions to the devotees.
The looming LPG crisis in the state in the wake of Iran-Israel conflict has made the temple managements jittery.
According to the Akhila Karnataka Hindu Temple Archakas Federation (AKHTAF) president M S Venkatachalaiah, there is no immediate crisis in the temples.
“We have LPG cylinder stock that can last for a week but if this scarcity continues then there will be a problem in serving Prasada (offerings to the deity) to the devotees,” AKHTAF president said.
He added that many temples in the state have started stocking wooden logs to overcome the LPG crisis.
“Our temples have started preparing to store wooden logs to prepare Prasada though currently we don’t have a problem, at least for a week,” Venkatachalaiah told PTI.
Another priest working in a temple belonging to the state Endowment Department said the temples may have to go back to the traditional way of cooking as done in the ancient time using wood.
The LPG crisis has not affected the mid-day meal programme for government school students yet, though there was a meeting in the Education Department to find ways to tackle if crisis deepens, sources associated with the Mid-day Meal programme said.
Meanwhile, the largest partner of the Mid-day Meal programme in the country is Akshaya Patra.
The NGO said they do not depend much on LPG gas cylinder.
“The LPG crisis has not affected us. Our kitchens are steam-based, and we generate steam through boilers which run on electricity. That’s point number one. Point number two—gas is used only for very minor things, mainly for seasoning. That is the tadka,” an Akshaya Patra executive told PTI.
According to him, the NGO has has a gas reserves for about nearly one month across India, though gas is used in very small quantities every day.
He pointed out that the Mid-day meal programme will not be affected because in one or one-and-a-half weeks, schools will close owing to summer vacation.
Akshaya Patra feeds 23.5 lakh children across more than 24,000 schools across India, in 16 states and three Union Territories, he said.
