Twitter is not alone in using GraphQL this way, letting the public all use the same token or key. Other websites do it, too, as shown below.

Using GraphQL like this can be a dark pattern because to anyone using a "modern" browser that "tech" commpanies control it makes it seem like the website will not work without Javascript enabled. That's false, but nonetheless it gets people to enable Javascript because the website explicitly asks them to enable it. Then the website, i.e., "tech" company, can perform telemetry, data collection, surveillance, and other shenanigans.

Sometimes this practice might not be a deliberate dark pattern, it might just be developers who are using Javascript gratuitously. For example, HN search provided by Algolia uses GraphQL. HN puts URLs with pre-selected query terms and a public token ("API key") on the HN website. Everyone that uses those URLs uses the same key.

Unlike Twitter, HN istelf does not ask anyone to enable Javascript. The website works fine without it, including the Algolia search, as shown below.

Usage is

   1.sh query > 1.json

   #!/bin/sh

   curl -A "" -d '{"query":"$@","analyticsTags":["web"],"page":0,"hitsPerPage":30,"minWordSizefor1Typo":4,"minWordSizefor2Typos":8,"advancedSyntax":true,"ignorePlurals":false,"clickAnalytics":true,"minProximity":7,"numericFilters":[],"tagFilters":["story",[]],"typoTolerance":"min","queryType":"prefixNone","restrictSearchableAttributes":["title","comment_text","url","story_text","author"],"getRankingInfo":true}' "https://uj5wyc0l7x-3.algolianet.com/1/indexes/Item_production_sort_date/query?x-algolia-agent=Algolia%20for%20JavaScript%20(4.0.2)%3B%20Browser%20(lite)&x-algolia-api-key=8ece23f8eb07cd25d40262a1764599b1&x-algolia-application-id=UJ5WYC0L7X"

Here is a non-curl version of HN search using custom HTTP generator yy025 and h1b, an alias for localhost address of TLS forward proxy

    #!/bin/sh

    export Connection=close;
    export Content_Type=x-www-form-urlencoded;
    export httpMethod=POST;
    x=$(echo '{"query":"'$@'","analyticsTags":["web"],"page":0,"hitsPerPage":30,"minWordSizefor1Typo":4,"minWordSizefor2Typos":8,"advancedSyntax":true,"ignorePlurals":false,"clickAnalytics":true,"minProximity":7,"numericFilters":[],"tagFilters":["story",[]],"typoTolerance":"min","queryType":"prefixNone","restrictSearchableAttributes":["title","comment_text","url","story_text","author"],"getRankingInfo":true}');
    export Content_Length=${#x};
    echo "https://uj5wyc0l7x-3.algolianet.com/1/indexes/Item_production_sort_date/query?x-algolia-agent=Algolia%20for%20JavaScript%20(4.0.2)%3B%20Browser%20(lite)&x-algolia-api-key=8ece23f8eb07cd25d40262a1764599b1&x-algolia-application-id=UJ5WYC0L7X"|(yy025;echo "$x") \
    |nc -vv h1b 80