Twitter kills sites that showed politicians’ deleted tweets

The Sunlight Foundation | The Verge

Earlier this year, Twitter quietly shut down Politwoops, the website created by The Sunlight Foundation that archived deleted tweets from U.S. politicians. Citing “the expectation of user privacy,” the social media service cut off its access to Twitter’s API, essentially rendering Politwoops useless. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump was among the many who mourned the passing of the service, calling Twitter’s move a “terrible decision.”

Today, multiple outlets reported that Twitter has taken another step against Politwoops, cutting off API access to an additional 30 international sites that archived deleted tweets from politicians worldwide. According to The Verge, Twitter reached the decision after “thoughtful internal deliberation and close consideration of a number of factors.” The Open State Foundation, which supervises the websites, emphasized that Politwoops is used by journalists worldwide and stressed that tweets from politicians should be public record.

“Even when tweets are deleted, it’s part of parliamentary history,” Arjan El Fassed, director of Open State Foundation, said in a statement. “These tweets were once posted and later deleted. 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.”

According to the Open State Foundation, versions of Politwoops were operating in Argentina, Australia, South Korea, Germany and Tunisia, among other countries.

The move seems to signal that Twitter intends to police its users more aggressively. Last month, it was reported that the social media service has begun to enforce copyright regulations on behalf of users who might’ve been infringed upon.

Twitter isn’t the first Web giant that has defended its users’ rights to privacy at journalists’ expense. In response to a European Court of Justice ruling from May 2014, Google is now granting so-called “right to be forgotten” requests from users who want the search engine to remove links to information about their lives. This has worried many journalists and journalism advocacy groups, who say the policy helps create a limited and incomplete history online.