Twitter Has Blocked 31 Government Transparency Accounts

Recently, Twitter has blocked 31 government transparency-seeking accounts from accessing its developer API. Twitter says these accounts have archived and made public the deleted tweets of politicians and other people.

The blocked accounts are operated by U.K.’s Open State Foundation and logged the deleted tweets of persons in power in over 30 countries around the world. The foundation believes that all tweets from elected officials must be made public even if they deleted them.

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.

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.

The British version of Politwoops is amongst the sites affected. Its Twitter account, @deletedbyMPs, has not posted since Friday evening because of the account closure. Its website, however, continues to archive deleted tweets, with the most recent example being a retweet by Labor MP Andrew Gwynne, who deleted the tweet on Saturday.

According to The Guardian, Twitter claims that these accounts violate the API’s terms of service, which forbids developers from storing deleted tweets, regardless of who tweeted them. Twitter has been blocking accounts that are seeking transparency in the tweets made by powerful people. Back in June, Twitter revoked API access from the popular Politwoops account run by the Sunlight Foundation and said it was “honoring the expectation of user privacy for all accounts is a priority for us, whether the user is anonymous or a member of Congress”.

Source: The Guardian