Twitter was once a mainstay of academic research — a way to take the pulse of the internet. But as new owner Elon Musk has attempted to monetize the service, researchers are struggling to replace a once-crucial tool. Unless Twitter makes another about-face soon, it could close the chapter on an entire era of research.
“Research using social media data, it was mostly Twitter-ology,” says Gordon Pennycook, an associate professor of behavioral science at the University of Regina. “It…