Twitter culls websites made for saving deleted tweets of politicians

Twitter is on a culling spree and it’s taking names. The social media network service shut off another 30 Politwoops sites earlier this Monday by denying them access to Twitter’s API, effectively taking operations of the site out of 30 other countries – including Egypt, Tunisia, Greece, the UK and France to the Vatican and the European Parliament.

These sites are managed by the Open State Foundation (OSF), who grew the website from its modest beginnings, a 2010 hackathon based in Netherlands. Politwoops, and its sister service, Diplotwoops, are websites that display archived tweets of politicians and diplomats they may or already have been deleted. Prior to the containment, the US arm of Politwoops run by Sunlight Foundation was already taken down.

The websites serve as a tool for politics journalists and political analysts for credibility and public accountability of statements made by politicians – be it recanted or omitted from their political history.

While Twitter is merely doing their due diligence by playing along with their very own Developer Agreement & Policy, the gag order is seen as a violation of government transparency by other bodies. Gizmodo reports that Twitter’s abiding of the specific policy, the service provider also effectively backpedaled on their pro-transparency stance.

"What elected politicians publicly say is a matter of public record. Even when tweets are deleted, it’s part of parliamentary history. These tweets were once posted and later deleted,” said Arjan El Fassed, director of Open State Foundation. “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."

Source: Channel NewsAsia, Ars Technica, The Verge

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