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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
That's a given, and I'd be surprised if it isn't like that already.
The "problem" from the politician's point of view is that they cannot retroactively not have said something that WAS popular but isn't anymore. Populists are very eager to say whatever seems popular today, no matter who they piss off, only to turn around and proclaim the exact opposite the next day, relying (rightfully) on their voters not remembering what they said days before.
That strategy doesn't work anymore when there is a perfect record of what was said.
Still, I don't think that the reinstatement has anything to do with political parties now being better "shielded" against it. It was simply the squeaky wheel in action. Twitter got a request from political parties to take down that nuisance, so they did. Why? Because it's the easier thing to do for Twitter, if they have to decide between some noname twitter account and getting political powers up against them, you are simply gone. Then they noticed the stink this caused on other fronts, from various non-profits, who can really make your life miserable if they want to, along with the looming threat of vigilante activists that could aim at Twitter (now that there isn't a more promising target on the radar, any reason works), which has a bigger chance to cut into Twitter's bottom line than the hurt feelings of political parties who can't really do anything against them directly due to the 1st.
So they reverse their stance and side with the other one. I wouldn't read any more into it, Twitter just sides with whoever can cause them more trouble if they don't get their way.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.