Twitter has announced it will expand free access to its social networking site's data to help software developers create tools and products that can promote safer online conversations or create content.
Head of Product for the Developer Platform, Amir Shevat Twitter said the move was part of Twitter's growing efforts over the past year to decentralize the company.
"A vision that aims to give users more control over what content they see on their Twitter timeline or have new ways to share content on the site," he said.
And efforts to increase developer access come as Twitter, Facebook and other social media companies face global scrutiny over how their algorithms deliver certain content and their role in enabling the spread of misinformation or hate speech.
Starting November 15, developers will also be able to access data for up to two million tweets per month via Twitter's application programming interface (API) at no cost.
Shevat said Twitter is also changing its API policies to allow for more use cases, including removing restrictions to compete with Twitter.
"I want everyone to be able to define their preferences and have their own curated content tailored to them. We can only do this if the developer is on board." he said.
Some examples of apps built with Twitter data include Block Party, which was founded by Software Engineer Tracy Chou and allows Twitter users to filter out content they don't want to see.
Then another app created by Software Engineer Janique-ka John allows users to more easily search for Twitter Spaces, the company's live audio chat feature.
