Twitter has decided that it doesn't like sites that tweet politician's tweets that the politicians have deleted. As such Politwoops website that saved tweets deleted by politicians said Monday that Twitter had blocked its access to Twitter, halting its operations across 30 countries.
As per the
Telegraph:
"The Open State Foundation started Politwoops in the Netherlands in
2010, and its collection of deleted tweets proved a frequent source of
embarrassment for politicians, as well as a useful tool for journalists.
But the foundation said it
was informed on Friday night by Twitter that access was being shut off
to Politwoops in the 30 countries in which it operates, following the
blocking of Politwoops' US operation in May.
It said Twitter was also blocking Diplotwoops, which screens deleted messages by diplomats and embassies worldwide.
The Open State Foundation said it was told that Twitter had decided to
suspend access "following thoughtful internal deliberation and close
consideration of a number of factors that doesn't distinguish between
users".
"No one user is more
deserving of that ability (to delete tweets) than another. Indeed,
deleting a tweet is an expression of the user's voice," Twitter told the
foundation.
Since being formed at a so-called
hackathon five years ago, Politwoops spread to 30 countries from Egypt
to the Vatican, as well as the European Parliament.
It started operating in the US in 2012 thanks to the Sunlight Foundation, which fights for transparency in politics.
In a statement to AFP, Twitter said that "the ability to delete one's
tweets - for whatever reason - has been a long-standing feature of
Twitter for all users".
Twitter policy says that those
who have access to its APIs (application programme interfaces), as
Politwoops did, must delete content "that Twitter reports as deleted or
expired".
"From time to time, we come upon apps or
solutions that violate that policy. Recently we identified several
services that used the feature we built to allow for the deletion of
tweets to instead archive and highlight them," Twitter said.
"We subsequently informed these services of their noncompliance and suspended their access to our APIs."
Open State Foundation director Arjan El Fassed insisted comments made
by politicians on Twitter should remain in the public domain.
"What elected politicians publicly say is a matter of public record.
Even when tweets are deleted, it's part of parliamentary history," he
said.
"What politicians say in public should be available to anyone," El Fassed added.
"This is not about typos but it is a unique insight on how messages from elected politicians can change without notice."
A check on the Politwoops website on Monday showed no activity for the past two days."
This is not a black and white issue in my opinion.
In essence should politicians who tweet be treated as human beings, or as politicians?
When a politician misspeaks on TV/radio his/her "misspeak" is more often than not repeatedly broadcast to millions.
Why should Twitter be any different?
Personally I think that depends on what they are tweeting about. A politician who tweets on a political subject is clearly acting as a politician. However, a non political tweet by a politician can be construed as a human being expressing a view. Thus, given that Twitter allows all users to delete human tweets, it should be the case that a politician can delete a human tweet as well.
However, sadly, it is the nature of politicians that they seek to take political advantage in all things.
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