New York City's transportation system ending updates on Twitter, says platform is 'no longer reliable'
The MTA said it 'does not pay tech platforms to publish service information'
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New York City's transportation system, the MTA, announced on Thursday that it will no longer provide real-time service updates on Twitter, saying that the platform is "no longer reliable for providing the consistent updates riders expect."
The MTA's access to Twitter through its API, or Application Programming Interface, was interrupted twice in the past two weeks, a spokesperson for the MTA said.
Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter last October, said earlier this year that Twitter would start charging a fee for access to its API because the free version was being "abused badly."
Twitter CEO Elon Musk speaks at the ‘Twitter 2.0: From Conversations to Partnerships,’ marketing conference in Miami Beach, Florida, on April 18, 2023. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
MTA Acting Chief Customer Shanifah Rieara pointed to other resources that riders can use for real time updates, including text message alerts, the MTA's website, and the MYmta and TrainTime apps.
"The MTA does not pay tech platforms to publish service information and has built redundant tools that provide service alerts in real time," Rieara told Fox Business in a statement. "The MTA has terminated posting service information to Twitter, effective immediately, as the reliability of the platform can no longer be guaranteed."
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MTA accounts on Twitter will still answer New Yorkers' questions on the platform, but service updates will no longer be available.
Twitter’s public relations department responded with an automated reply of a poop emoji when Fox Business requested a comment on the MTA's exit.
A woman uses a Metropolitan Transit Authority card to enter the New York Subway system at the Times Square stop in New York. (REUTERS/Andrew Burton / Reuters)
Twitter has implemented numerous changes with Musk at the helm, most recently scrapping verified checkmarks for accounts that don't pay for the Twitter Blue subscription service.
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The platform also slapped a "state-affiliated media" label on NPR's earlier this month, before changing it to "government funded media." NPR quit Twitter in response because it said "the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility."
Twitter eventually dropped the "government funded media" label from NPR, as well as several state-run media outlets around the world, including Russia's RT and China's CGTN.