Last week, Twitter decided to start moving users of the popular TweetDeck application to the preview build of the new version. Right now, most TweetDeck users like the current older version much better and now it appears Twitter is allowing some people to revert back to that older build.
The Verge reports that many Twitter users online have posted up word that they are now being given a choice to "leave the new TweetDeck" and switch back to the previous version.
Good news: Old TweetDeck is back pic.twitter.com/lqFe8zLmBL
— Michael van Poppel (@mpoppel) July 8, 2023
There"s no word yet on why Twitter is making this about-face, but it appears that it might be connected to the social network allowing access to some of its older APIs for free again, as some third-party Twitter apps may be available once more as well. One of them is Harpy, and its developer Roberto Doering stated on his GitHub page that the app can access "Twitter"s legacy v1 API". However, he added he expects the company to "shut down access to their legacy api (again) soon."
It"s been a fairly chaotic week at Twitter, and that"s saying something for the social network since Elon Musk bought it back in the fall of 2022. It started restricting the number of tweets users could see each day, and kept non-logged users from viewing tweets at all for a few days. It also announced that starting in August, it would make TweetDeck a paid feature of its Twitter Blue service.
There"s also that little matter of one of Twitter"s biggest rivals, Meta, launching a similar service called Threads, which reached 70 million users less than two days after its launch. Twitter has already threatened Meta with a possible lawsuit, claiming it hired former Twitter employees and took trade secrets to creat Threads. Meta has denied these claims.