Defunct business auto DM feature no longer editable and still sends

[BSlickComposer]

Hey all,

A few years back, Twitter allowed you to flag your account as a business which gave you a few features. Some included an easy message button on your bio for people to contact you, hours of your business (or hours when you were most active to help clients/customers), and another feature was an auto DM.

How this DM worked was that as soon as someone opened up a new thread with you to send you a message, your auto DM fired off and messaged them first. It catches people off guard because it sends so quickly.

Fast forward a little bit, and that service has changed quite a bit, and has (assuming) turned into what business.twitter.com is today. The issue, is that the tools and pages that were once available to you to edit are no longer accessible. Most importantly, the page where you can edit the auto DM message and disable/enable it. The problem; the message still sends to people, and in my specific case the message includes a link which is no longer working, making me look very unprofessional.

I’ve run into several others who also have this message that sends and they have no idea how to turn it off, and no one has been successful in contacting twitter support for help. I’ve submitted several tickets, and tried to contact them directly on Twitter, but to no avail.

Let me clarify that this is not a third-party auto direct messaging system such as crowdfire; this was/is an internal Twitter feature.

Anyone have any solutions for this?

[happycamper]

@BSlickComposer -
I think this may be related to the DM welcome message feature which automatically creates a message if a DM conversation is started:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/direct-messages/welcome-messages/overview

If you have direct message authorization for the @handle that the rouge auto DM is coming from, you may be able to disable it through an API call like below:

See how the DM welcome message rule is set up:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/direct-messages/welcome-messages/api-reference/get-welcome-message-rule

Disable it:
https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/direct-messages/welcome-messages/api-reference/delete-welcome-message-rule

[BSlickComposer]

Hey happycamper,

I appreciate the reply, however I am just a normal user and do not have access to API changes. I’ve done everything in my power to try and solve the issue but I’ve resorted to asking developers.

Thoughts?

[happycamper]

Is the DM coming from your own @handle? What is the @handle this is active on?

[BSlickComposer]

Yes from my handle - https://www.twitter.com/BSlickComposer

[BSlickComposer]

What do you think @happycamper - (or anybody reading this for that manner) any thoughts on how I might be able to rid of it?

I’ll clarify again; I’m just a regular account, I do not have API access - this was something back in 2016 that Twitter allowed you to freely enroll in, but now the business.twitter pages are completely revamped, and only business (assuming paying) accounts have access to things like a DM “Welcome Message”, but I’d just like to turn mine off; it’s quite a nuisance lol.

[happycamper]

Hey @BSlickComposer - couple troubleshooting tips/options:

Review which Apps have access to your account with the access (read, write, direct messages) within the settings of your Twitter account here: https://twitter.com/settings/sessions

If you recognize the app with direct message access that you set up the welcome message with, dig in with that application and remove it through their app. This will be the easiest way to remove the automatic message. There isn’t currently a way to do this through the Twitter UI.

If you don’t remember or see the app, you can programmatically remove the message yourself by:

1. Creating your own Twitter app & generating your own access token: https://developer.twitter.com/en/apps
2. Calling the GET welcome_message request here to get the message id
3. Using the message id in the DELETE welcome_message request here

[BSlickComposer]

I will try @happycamper- however this welcome message is not from a third party app, which is what I’ve been trying to clarify. It was built into the native Twitter API, and was something they rolled out themselves in 2016.

I will try to submit an application to get API access but I’m not sure any of my application will hold water since I’m solely trying to solve an issue that is truly an actual issue with Twitter itself

[BSlickComposer]

Ok @happycamper my application was approved and I have “created an app” and able to create a token, however I’m not sure what to do with the information about the API scripts to call/delete the messages. What do I do with that code? Where does it go?

I’m really grateful for your help, and I feel like I’m really close to solving this issue that has plagued me for about a year now!

[happycamper]

Here is the most straightforward way I could suggest:

Install twurl: https://github.com/twitter/twurl

Authorize twurl with your new app credentials from your terminal:

$ twurl authorize -u furiouscamper -p Password#123 --consumer-key QGxxxxxxxx7b --consumer-secret Uu4xxxxxxxxxxxoU

Run the command below from your terminal to get the welcome message ID:

$ twurl -X GET "/1.1/direct_messages/welcome_messages/list.json"

The response will look something like this:
{"welcome_messages":[{"id":"855000000009476","created_timestamp":"1492791351833","message_data":{"text":"Hi!......

Get the message ID: 855000000009476

Then run the command below from your terminal to delete the welcome message:

$ twurl -X DELETE /1.1/direct_messages/welcome_messages/destroy.json?id=855000000009476

[BSlickComposer]

Ok, thanks so much for that. Going to see if I can do this. I really do appreciate it!

[BSlickComposer]

$ twurl -X DELETE /1.1/direct_messages/welcome_messages/destroy.json?id=855000000009476

Ok wow! I’m so close! I was able to get authorized, and I could get the message and it shows me the correct message in terminal.

In using the ID on the delete command, I don’t really get a response back, nor do I think it is deleting it (unless there is some sort of time delay after you have disabled it?) because I had some people test it maybe 5 minutes later, and they were still receiving the message

[bobber205]

In my experience you’ll get some kind of response upon deletion.

The tricky part is to make sure you’re deleting the right ID – when you do a list of all your welcome messages there are two sets of ids – the message itself and the “state” I think they call it (of which there is only 1 possibility atm, aka the welcome state)

[BSlickComposer]

That makes sense.

I’m not querying any messages anymore when I do the GET command, so my assumption is that it isn’t there anymore.

For future reference (since I’ve somewhat figured out the delete part), if I want to add one back (that actually functions), how do I use the new command? Do I have to manually set an ID number?

[bobber205]

The twurl is a useful utility to create new welcome messages.

The situation is basically the same just in the reverse. Create a welcome message then set it as your “welcome state”. Once you create the message itself you’ll get an ID to use on the next step.

[system]

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