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Twitter To Revive Politwoops, Archive of Politicians' Deleted Tweets (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Twitter shut down Politwoops, a network of deleted tweets from politicians, this summer with the statement: "Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable? No one user is more deserving of that ability than another. Indeed, deleting a tweet is an expression of the user's voice." To the joy of open-government advocates and with the help of government transparency nonprofits, Twitter says it will work to get Politwoops up and running again. "Politwoops is an important tool for holding our public officials, including candidates and elected or appointed public officials, accountable for the statements they make, and we're glad that we've been able to reach an agreement with Twitter to bring it back online both in the U.S. and internationally," said Jenn Topper, communications director for The Sunlight Foundation
I remember not being surprised when it was shut down and I find my surprise at this announcement tempered by the thought that there must be something else in play.
I'm wondering if, during the period that it was shut down, that various political parties have been able to set up some sort of moderation program. This would operate such that a politicians tweets would first go to party central moderation for clearance for public submission.
Nobody in the "free" world would do that you say? Well, people pretty much give up their personal opinions and slavishly follow the party line when they embark on a political career because political parties are in some ways like large corporations. They are not nice entities and the only way to advance within them is determined by how you are seen to conform to party rules and who you can be sycophantic towards. If you don't, then you're never going to get to the position where you might actually be a candidate in an election.
" we're glad that we've been able to reach an agreement with Twitter"
Bollocks to you.
You don't need an agreement to record this stuff.
Sounds like it could be useful but that's about all I have to say on the matter.
I can understand letting a politician (or indeed anyone) delete a tweet if you do it quickly (where quickly is probably a minute or two). People make mistakes and correct them soon after.
Deleting a tweet after a lot of other people point out that you are being an ass or are demonstrably wrong is a very different thing.
Maybe they should have an option - to keep it invisible to everyone except you for a minute after posting, so you can check - you know, if tweeting is so terrifying.
Sure, it would have taken a little bit more effort, but this sort of thing should have been built using the standard Twitter interface, just follow all politicians using multiple anonymous accounts and then note whatever they delete. Then it would have been secure against any bull the lead Twits might decide whether it be blatantly revoking their access or secretly moderating their access. And you can't really say no one expected there would be an attempt to shut it down.
Another stupid thing is expecting to be able to publish something publicly, and then keep it a secret.
Finally, the Twits thought they could shut down this service, even though lots of people wanted it and the only way to really stop it would be to shut down their own company entirely.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
It is estimated that on average, deleted tweets by politicians contain exactly 10 times more truth than the ones they didn't delete
What, you mean like e-mail? You great walloping buffoon.
is Twitter itself.
We should be discomfited if not greatly concerned that arguably our most precious possession, speech, is arbitrated by private companies like Twitter and Facebook.
if your tweet is truly embarrassing, then you can always claim that your account has been hacked.
Twitter makes no secret of the fact that it, at best, tacitly supports SJW crusaderism, and at worst actively supports it. So of course, when reading politician's deleted tweets was a detriment to their chosen party...they stopped it. Now that the tables have turned, better let Trump be unable to hide.
Until some politician like this claims "harassment" because their malicious tweets are permanent parts of the public record. Never mind the fact that a lot of politicians could stand to take a heaping dose of "harassment" for the garbage that they spew and do on a regular basis. When the right one, probably a liberal democrat, crybullies Twitter hard enough, they'll pull the plug.
Because that's what they do. This is a site that banned Milo Yiannopoulos for a while, but has never touched Randi Harper's accounts despite the fact that the former is a journalist and the latter a female troll so bad that a major open source community was willing to risk opprobrium by asking her to leave.
Imagine how nerve-racking â" terrifying, even â" tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable?
in the tricky world of social media, You can call your product "customers" and insist theyre a close friend of the brand. you can insist your "service" is in fact to their benefit for communication when in fact it is merely a portal into which you collect their content. But the real danger comes when a majority of the cattle consider your social media offering a democratic and/or community project outside your definitions of the words.
twitter, facebook, instagram --any social site really-- operates on the model of a large farm. The cattle are free to eat as much as they want, sleep as much as they want, and produce as much as they want so long as they dont kick or bite the other cattle, and so long as they dont produce bad milk or meat for the actual customer. Twitter shut down politwoops because it was bad for their brand to make the most important cattle unappealing in the marketplace.
Good people go to bed earlier.
There is a vicious rumour that he once said something sensible. That could totally ruin his reputation.
"Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable? "
Like Slashdot?
That is, if you aren't the 'church' of Scientology.
Seems like some politicians could use this to their own advantage. Post duplicate mundane tweets like "I voted 'No' on HB 121", then delete the extra. Then this Twitter feed basically becomes a second sounding board for their actual Tweets. Took me about 10 seconds to figure out how to game this, should probably only take the average politician a few days.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Now if only we could see Hillary's deleted e-mails.
Maybe Twitter should keep a 10 second rule.
If you think and have the presence of mind to retract a tweet within 10 seconds, it never happened.
Even politicians are only human. (At least, so they claim.)
It's ad revenue. Twitter finally noticed that the "tweets" that often get erased by these bozos are being captured on screenshots anyway and being shared via imgur or some other image hosting site so their action of taking this down over the summer had only a minimal net effect on protecting the people who complained about it. Now that they have started this branch of their service up again, there will be no need for anyone to screenshot and repost the offending comment so the revenue from the ads will go into Twitter's pockets instead of another sources.
You only have to look at any major national newspaper's want ads to realise that "Political Twitter Correspondent" is an actual job. The candidates probably have some say in what gets posted, but they are not the ones typing this stuff out anymore then the actors who hire publicists to do the exact same thing.
The reason for this is that they have a political motive here and that they feel that their candidate will come out best because their candidate does not tweet, either directly by her self or via her dozen or do spin dictators.
Imagine a world where you are accountable for what you say on the internet!
follow all politicians using multiple anonymous accounts and then note whatever they delete.
The client ID of the application for archiving politicians' Tweets could be blocked, and the user account doing this following could be blocked. In addition, Twitter limits an account to following about 5,000 other accounts until the account itself has a substantial (undisclosed) number of followers. That limits the number of jurisdictions whose legislatures a single account can archive.
Imagine a world where a fleeting indiscretion is worth a life sentence. People with bladder problems already have to deal with this when a first offense of public urination lands them on the sex offender registry.
Twitter said: "deleting a tweet is an expression of the user's voice"
This is so funny I don't even know where to begin.
...where what you say in public can be recorded and kept indefinitely.
Like the evening news. Or some person with a cell phone recording a speech. Or you publish an article in a magazine or newspaper.
Hey, so, like, when you put something out for the public, then it's... public.
Love sees no species.
Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable?
Like posting on /. ?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Every tweet IS immutable and irrevocable. Click 'delete' all you want - once Twatter has your data, it never forgets. This is true of all adsurveillance-funded "free" services.
Dissident subjects of financial-totalitarian surveillance states would do well to observe an old Vatican maxim: Think much, speak little, write nothing down.
Think about the millions of not famous people in younger than 30 that will have their entire online life publicized when they a) become an elected official, b) a professional musician, c) get on TV for some reason, ...
I imagine long lost demos from 2020's 'hot' new act being released by google for $ from old youtube uploads.
"Imagine how nerve-racking -- terrifying, even -- being a politician would be if they were held accountable for what they said?"
FTFY.
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