Twitter shut down a site that saved politicians’ deleted tweets by Colin Lecher
Colin reports that Politwoops (Sunlight Foundation) was shut down by Twitter. It’s crime? It saved tweets that politicians deleted. Horrors. A public statements that remain public statements. Can’t imagine why anyone would think that was reasonable.
No appeal, no coherent explanation, no review of the history of a discussion that has been going on since 2012. See Colin’s post for more details.
The Sunlight Foundation has its own reasons “honoring” the Twitter decision. However, I think the Twitter decision merits a more pointed response.
Script to detect deleted tweets? Anyone have a script they can post to search for deleted tweets? Assuming the starting point is an archive of tweets and the script checks to see if any have been deleted.
Polypoops or some similar title: Reddit? For user who detect deleted tweets to post them. Assuming that any site hosting edgy porn won’t be overly troubled by embarrassing politicians.
You may protest that such activities may be seen by Twitter as violating its “terms of service.” To be honest, I am not overly concerned with Twitter’s “dog in the manger” strategies when it comes to Twitter content.
Bounty for Internal Twitter Decision Making on Politwoops: If you are good with writing/managing Kickstarter campaigns, what do you think about a bounty for internal Twitter decision making documentation on the Politwoops issue? What do you think it would take? How would you authenticate a response?
Twitter management is within its legal rights to make arbitrary and capricious decisions about their terms of service.
The community is within its rights to make decisions as well.
The question is whether Twitter management wants to pull back its corporate hand or a nub.