You think this is unique to X? If anything, it’s unique they’re exposing this.
When the API was public academics and independent scholars used to do this sort of research all the time, but now it's prohibitively expensive. Read up on the search/streaming API and reflect on the fact that it used to be free.
"exposing" should have been past tense. They've quickly reverted that feature once they realized how bad it made them look.
Are you trying to make sure that any criticism of X can be shrugged off by supporters and detractors alike as cheap ideological attacks? Because if you are, excellent job.