A project of the Integrity InstituteAPIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are structured mechanisms for two computer systems to interact with one another. Platforms typically offer APIs in order to assist developers and researchers that build tools for their platforms, or seek to study it. APIs typically offer controls and actions that mimic the set of actions that a user could take on the platform (listing, searching, reading, posting, etc).
However, Platforms should consider the surface of their API (the set of functionality they enable) carefully. Many actions on a platform are designed and intended only for human use, and enabling API access to create data or mutate state in these features is likely to lead to unwanted automation. Of particular focus should be API mechanisms that allow users to create data in ways that might appear to others as posted by a human. Omitting data creation features like these would not impinge on other uses of the API, like listing, reading, searching, and deleting.
Using this approach in combination with other flavors of interventions (like limits and graduated features), API designers can create systems to gate access to powerful capabilities (like the ability to create data data) to users that have exhibited signals of trust, and confined themselves to the limits set out by the API.
APIs are powerful tools - platforms should design them with abuse in mind.