Microsoft Removes Twitter from Ad Platform, Musk Contemplates Lawsuit

“Starting on April 25, 2023, Smart Campaigns with Multi-Platform will no longer support Twitter,” the release read.

“As of April 25, 2023, you’ll be unable to: access your Twitter account through our social management tool, create and manage drafts or tweets, view past tweets and engagement, and schedule tweets.”

However, other social media sites like Facebook and Instagram from Meta, as well as Microsoft’s LinkedIn, will still be accessible through the advertisement service.

Microsoft’s decision follows Twitter’s announcement of payments for access to its Application Programming Interface, although no justifications were provided.

Formerly available for free, Twitter’s API gives third parties extensive access to information that users have decided to post publicly.

However, the business recently declared that it would start collecting an access charge of $42,000 per month in an effort to boost revenue.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, announced on Wednesday that he will be pursuing legal action in response to the news. Additionally, he claimed that Microsoft had improperly accessed Twitter data for “training.”

“They trained illegally, using Twitter’s data. Lawsuit time,” he tweeted on Wednesday.

When asked if he had any other long-term plans, Musk responded that he was open to suggestions, saying that charging for access to its API would lower traffic to the site.
Nevertheless, he persisted in saying that the IT firm was “ripping off” information from Twitter.

“I’m open to suggestions, but I don’t believe that stealing the Twitter database, demonetizing it (removing the ads), and then selling our data to others is a viable option.”