As reported by Julianne Pepitone of CNN Money, Twitter has become much stricter with the guidelines for their application programming interface (API) to the dismay of many of its most popular app developers. Twitter will strongly restrict access to their map of user connections.  Apps will now be limited in how many times per hour they can access Twitter’s API and apps that attract more than 100,000 users will need approval to add more.  Due to these mandates, both Tumblr and Instagram have lost their applications which allow users to find twitter friends with similar interests.

In addition to these new rules, Twitter wants to eliminate all apps like Tweetbot and Echofon that show tweets through different platforms and interfaces. Essentially, any app that tries to do Twitter better than Twitter. Many developers believe that these new rules attack their internet freedom and were simply put in place to slow down competition. Some others, however, have stated that they think the mandates are reasonable and they’re happy that there are now clear cut, non-ambiguous guidelines.