CENSORSHIP | Twitter shuts down 30 sites dedicated to saving politicians' deleted tweets

===============
Twitter's decision to ban archiving of politicians' deleted tweets is a mistake
Who does Twitter serve?
by: The Verge - T.C. Sottek - August 24, 2015 03:47 pm
---------------
Twitter’s commitment to transparency appears to end when it makes the powerful uncomfortable.

Back in 2012, Twitter decided to allow the Sunlight Foundation to collect and curate deleted tweets from lawmakers and people seeking public office in order to hold them accountable by preserving their public statements on the record. That behavior was in-line with a company whose founders constantly sold it as the nexus of free speech. "We are the free speech wing of the free speech party," Twitter's former CEO Dick Costolo famously said that same year.

But in June of this year, Twitter shut down the deleted tweet project in the US under the guise of "honoring the expectation of user privacy." Then, this Sunday, Twitter dealt the final blow, killing the Open State Foundation’s effort to archive deleted tweets from public officials in 30 other countries.

...Twitter, like all profit-driven social platforms, has to make money — which means at some point it starts serving certain audiences (like celebrities and politicians) more than its ideals of free expression and transparency. The company sells itself as a democratizing tool the world over, but its actual commitment is more complicated. Twitter does care about preserving tweets — for brands.

TWITTER'S DECISION IS IMMENSELY HYPOCRITICAL

To put a fine point on Twitter’s hypocrisy, the company announced earlier this month that it would be giving some clients "instant and complete access to every historical public Tweet," for the purposes of marketing.

"Dr. Carl Sagan once famously said, ‘you have to know the past to understand the present,’" Twitter wrote in introducing the new feature. "For brands to most effectively analyze Twitter data in the present, they also need to know what’s happened in the past." Funny, since you could say citizens and voters — Twitter’s user base — have the same need
...
THE MOVE TO BAN POLITWOOPS IS BASED ON FALSE-EQUIVALENCY

... more at link

---------------
[link to www.theverge.com] ===============

aHEMagain

Last Edited by LJS on 08/24/2015 06:52 PM

Placeholder

The right to be forgotten is only enjoyed by the elite now.

I don't see how this is legal.

just another way for us NOT to be able to hold them accountable.

Last Edited by 411 on 08/24/2015 06:20 PM

It's a private company, so they can do what they want.

I wouldn't want to pass a law to make what they've done illegal, I just want them to make a decision that better fits their stated mission.

I'm curious what others think about why market forces don't seem to work in cases like this.

In theory, if Twitter starts making decisions that alienate their customers, they'll loose business to some company that will give people what they want.

I know that this particular subject might not grab enough people's interest to make them switch to something else.

The problem is I don't know of ANY examples recently where "the better company" wins.

aHEMagain

Last Edited by aHEMagain^2 on 08/24/2015 06:23 PM

I don't use twitter or visit their site. I don't see the point in it. is it even profitable?

so i can't copy any tweet off their website and archive them?

pretty well clear Corporate America is telling us what freedoms we have or not have. JMHO's

^^^^^^^
I don't know about their profitability, but Twitter has a lock on real-time reporting of breaking stories.

In that first 30-60 minutes after an event, trying to use Google to find updates versus using Twitter shows how powerful the platform is.

It's worth having an account just to be able to take advantage of the search tools.

aHEMagain

And yet the publics tweets are kept in perpetuity

If you know that the tweet was posted, and can get it copied before it's deleted, they can't stop you.

They probably can keep you from publishing it by saying it violates copyright.

The problem is, few people (if any) can keep watch on all public officials 24/7 to catch tweets before they get deleted. The only reason this group was able to do it was Twitter provided them a pipe into their database.

Even if someone wanted to automate a system that monitored and archived externally, it would be pointless if Twitter decides to go after anyone who publishes deleted tweets, which I'm sure they will.

aHEMagain

They can delete whatever they want but they should not be able to interfere with others archiving their statements.

This will be a problem for future generations as the current batch have only their adult selves to deal with on social media. The kids today have all their dirty laundry out, so I expect realities will change in the future as to how much consideration is given to something said years, maybe decades earlier.

People can change their opinion and half of good learning is making mistakes and experimenting with concepts and material. Nobody comes out of the womb with their ideology solidified.

How about a dump of the information?

There is always a way of getting what you need without an api.

^^^^^^^^^^
The method used to get the data is inconsequential, if Twitter sues you for copyright violation when you try to publish whatever data you're able to get.

aHEMagain

A temporary setback, the way I see it. If it's posted to twitter, it can be copied and stored.

Page scrapers are created every second by developers. Create an automated bot to scrape twitter accounts and archive on server hosted anywhere or everywhere for that matter.

Hell, so a screenshot of twitter accounts. I have an application called macro-express that can do that on my home PC.

I chose "No" simply because you're running for office. "You" being the politician in question of course. You're running for a public office. You have NO right(s) to stay totally private. Of course this has limits, but when you're running for office the public has every right to know your opinions and beliefs about almost anything and everything. It's not right for the public to rip apart any of your beliefs and opinions though. On the other hand, it's a matter of getting to know your politician in such a way or ways that allow you to building actual trust and even friendships with. Too bad too many politicians just want to rule you mind, body, and soul instead of seeing you as who and what you really are.

Did they call it the "Kill Twitchy Rule"?

And then do WHAT with it?

If you can't legally publish on the Internet (or anywhere) what you archive, it's of very limited use.

This is an important change to the way officials communicate with the public.

Just imagine, you're running for office, and you send out a tweet promising "a chicken in every pot!" or "deportation of every illegal!"

Then you get elected, and you decide to get rid of that tweet/promise.

How does someone call the politician on that promise? You can't post a copy of the tweet with a story about it. You can't publish a picture of the tweet in a newspaper.

If the politician had stood up in town square and loudly declared the same thing and you made an audio recording of it, the politician couldn't stop you from publishing your recording of their statement.

Twitter is a very BIG Town Square.

aHEMagain

I'm not sure I'm understanding what your opinion is versus what you acknowledge is the current reality.

We agree that there are limits to how far the public should be able to intrude into the private lives of public officials AND those seeking to become public officials.

Tweets aren't private. They could serve as the definition of "public".

Twitter has decided that private citizens are allowed to delete their public statements on Twitter's platform, and now they've decided the same should be true for everyone, even those who are using Twitter as a function of their public office.

I propose that the same rules which apply to newspapers and broadcasters publishing recordings of comments made by those running for office and in office should apply to tweets as well. You can't take back making a fool of yourself on the Today Show, you shouldn't be able to on Twitter either.

aHEMagain

Did they shut down malkin's site. Heard she made two billion selling her original site.

taking down a political threat, sure. to bad the NSA spying cannot not be shutdown as easily

Dunno, they do a good job of hemorrhaging cash.

What if you made a reaction video to the tweet? That couldn't be a copyright violation...

I wonder if any three letter organizations are keeping a record?

Oh. Whoops. I've never been on Twitter but to visit someone's specific tweets over the years. I thought you could make specific tweets private too. Other than this, I don't know much about Twitter since I never use it.

Call the NSA's hotline and ask them if they can provide you a copy of someone's specific tweets. They probably can.

I've never liked the concept of Twitter. Just thinking about it makes me feel stupid.