Tracking politicians blunders on social media has suffered a setback.
Twitter has cut off Politwoops and Diplotwoops, two sites that track tweets deleted by politicians, diplomats and embassies around the world. The move comes a couple of months after Twitter shut off Politwoops access in the United States.
With the help of Twitter s API (application programming interface), tweets deleted by the powerful had automatically flowed into the sites created and operated by the Open State Foundation. But the foundation said Sunday that Twitter turned off access to its API on Friday.
Arjan El Fassed, director of Open State Foundation, shared with us what Twitter told them, which reads, in part:
The ability to delete one s Tweets – for whatever reason – has been a long-standing feature of the Twitter service. Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – Tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable? No one user is more deserving of that ability than another. Indeed, deleting a Tweet is an expression of the user s voice.
Twitter is known to advocate for transparency, but it also has gone to bat to protect user privacy — something that seems to have taken precedence in this case. In addition, the statement above portrays its stance as a move to protect users speech.
But there s this from El Fassed: What elected politicians publicly say is a matter of public record, he said in a press release. What politicians say in public should be available to anyone. This is not about typos but it is a unique insight on how messages from elected politicians can change without notice.
Twitter blocked Politwoops access in 30 countries, but the foundation said it would continue to explore and engage with others to keep public messages by elected politicians visible.
We wrote in June that Twitter had cut off Politwoops access in the United States, saying that preserving deleted tweets violates its developer agreement. The president of the Sunlight Foundation, which adopted the Open State Foundation s tool, said at the time that he was mystified by Twitter s change of heart. Christopher Gates said Twitter had known all along what Politwoops did, and it was unclear to him what prompted the move three years after the site s debut.
Photo from AFP/Getty Images archives
