If you’ve been planning to catch up on what politicians delete from their tweets, you’ve missed the boat. Twitter has taken down Politwoops, the three-year-old site dedicated to collecting deleted tweets by holders of public office, because, says Twitter, preserving killed tweets violates Twitter users’ “expectation of privacy.”

Not surprisingly, this week’s shutdown news has generated considerable fire online. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump, in his column “Twitter’s terrible decision to block Politwoops” calls the shutdown “flawed.” “Often what Politwoops captured were deleted typos or accidental retweets,” writes Bump. “On occasion, it was something more intriguing.”

One of Bump’s examples: the retraction of politicians’ tweets praising the release of Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier who was held hostage in Afghanistan and subsequently charged with desertion.

The Huffington Post’s Sara Bondioli argues that Politwoops’ demise “means less transparency in politics.”

Politwoops was founded by the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit group that aims to make government data available to the public. Christopher Gates, president of the Sunlight Foundation, wrote in a eulogy that Twitter’s decision to block the account is a symptom of a lack of transparency on the Internet.

“Unfortunately, Twitter’s decision to pull the plug on Politwoops is a reminder of how the Internet isn’t truly a public square,” he wrote. “Our shared conversations are increasingly taking place in privately owned and managed walled gardens, which means that the politics that occur in such conversations are subject to private rules.”

Gates notes that Politwoops wasn’t created solely to focus on blunders, but to reveal “a more intimate perspective on our politicians and how they communicate with their constituents.”

The eulogy drew angry responses from its readers, with several criticizing Twitter and one asking “Who do you think Twitter actually works for? The politicians or the people?”

Twitter’s initial statement on the shutdown said it supported Sunlight’s mission of increasing transparency in politics, but that preserving deleted tweets violated its developer agreement. The organization did not respond to follow-up questions from Reuters.