Slack gets rid of its X integration

Slack has retired its integration with X (formerly Twitter) because of X’s API changes introduced earlier this year.

According to Slack, X’s API changes affected the functionality of the integration, which led to the decision to retire it. “Slack’s integration with X relies on access to its API, and changes to that API this spring impacted the integration’s functionality and the services it supports,” Rod Garcia, Slack’s VP of software engineering, said in a statement to The Verge. “The Twitter app for Slack has not been functional since X implemented these changes, so we have removed the app from the small set of customer workspaces that still have it installed. For more information, please see our update on Slack’s feature retirements page.”

Here’s what Slack says on that feature refinements page: “The Twitter app for Slack is no longer available due to upstream API limitations.” However, X posts will “continue to unfurl” if your Slack settings allow that. The page says that the Twitter app has had a “retired” designation as of October 19th.

The retirement means that Slack’s X integration is just one of many useful things relying on X / Twitter data that has gone away because of the changes instituted under Elon Musk’s ownership. In January, X banned third-party apps, which my former colleague Mitchell Clark argued made the site what it is today. When asked for comment, X’s press email replied with its recent standard auto-reply: “Busy now, please check back later.”