Platform Factsheet: X (formerly Twitter)

Last updated: 2023-08-18

This platform-specific fact sheet is intended to provide researchers with tips and resources to get started using X (formerly Twitter) in their research.

Researchers should be aware that platforms can and do change over time, so for the most up to date information please refer to X/Twitter's official documentation. We have provided some links to X/Twitter's documentation below and will endeavour to keep them up to date.

Is there an API?

Yes

Is there a Terms of Service?

Yes

Developer guides and documentation

• Developer and API documentation

• Building high-quality filters for getting X/Twitter data: This guide helps you to determine the most appropriate search strategy for collecting Tweets that are relevant to your research.

• Navigating X, formerly Twitter: A guide for journalists: This article is useful for anyone working with X/Twitter's API, not just journalists.

Basic information about the API

X/Twitter's API has four access levels: Free, Basic, Pro, and Enterprise.

Rate limits:

• Free access does not allow tweet retrieval, only tweet creation.
• Basic access allows you to retrieve 10,000 tweets per month at a cost of US$100 per month.
• Pro access allows you to retrieve 1,000,000 tweets per month at a cost of US$5,000 per month.
• Enterprise access is provided on a case-by-case basis.

See the following link for more information about X/Twitter API access levels and versions.

Tools

• twarc is a command line tool and Python library for collecting an archiving X/Twitter JSON data via the X/Twitter API. It has an ecosystem of plugins for doing things with the collected data.

• tidy_tweet tidies X/Twitter JSON collected with twarc into relational tables. The resulting SQLite database is ideal for importing into analytical tools, or for using as a datasource for a programmatic analytical workflow that is more efficient than working directly from the raw JSON.

• tweetexploR is an R package for exploring and visualising tidy Twitter data created with the tidy_tweet library.