Yes, this is still the case. I thought for sure Tweet Thief was missing something obvious, but when I went and tried it, he is 100% correct!
I agree with him that this is a serious bug that needs to be fixed. Jim Renkel -----Original Message----- From: twitter-development-talk@googlegroups.com [mailto:twitter-development-t...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Raffi Krikorian Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 14:12 To: twitter-development-talk@googlegroups.com Subject: [twitter-dev] Re: Private user's 'following' information: why am I denied access via API but can get through Twitter.com? is this actually the case? http://apiwiki.twitter.com/REST+API+Changelog on the 15th of september, this issue may have been cleared up. > > > This is an annoying inconsistency with the Twitter API. > > If you do an authenticated call to view a user's friends/followers, > and that user is either blocking the authenticated user or is private, > you will not be able to view their friends/followers. You will get > "not authorized" error. However, if on Twitter.com, you login and try > to do the same thing, you CAN do this. > > The solution in the API is to make UNauthenticated calls and you will > be able to view friends/followers without issue. > > On Sep 3, 12:37 am, Tweet Thief <tweetth...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Summary Question: "If a user is 'private' on Twitter, why can I see >> their followers on Twitter.com (IFF I log in) but not through the >> API?" >> >> Details: >> >> For example, I went tohttp://twitter.com/just_me_hi/followers/and >> can see all of her followers, despite the fact that she is "private" >> >> (Note: I can see them on twitter.com while logged in even when I am >> fairly certain that she blocked me before going private.) >> >> curl -D - -s -u user:pass >> "http://twitter.com/friendships/exists.xml?user_a=just_me_hi&user_b=tw >> ..." >> >> Results in: >> >> HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden >> Status: 403 Forbidden >> (irrelevant headers edited) >> >> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> >> <hash> >> <request>/friendships/exists.xml? >> user_a=just_me_hi&user_b=tweetthief</request> >> <error>You do not have permission to retrieve following status for >> both specified users.</error> >> </hash> >> >> PLEASE NOTE: I tried the same API access from another account I am >> 99.9999% sure she did NOT block, and it still gives me this >> "permission error" so it does NOT appear to have anything to do with >> whether or not this account is "blocked" and everything to do with >> the >> fact that the account is marked "private"… >> >> I don't understand why the API gives me less access to information >> than the website. >> >> T.T. >> >> ps: @just_me_hi appears to have gone private after I (and others) >> called her out for plagiarism in violation of the Twitter TOS. You >> can >> see the chain of events here: >> >> http://tweetthief.tumblr.com/tagged/justmehi/chrono >> >> --http://tweetthief.tumblr.com >> Shining a light on users who plagiarize on Twitter -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter Platform Team ra...@twitter.com | @raffi
