Blocks API in use since 2010 based on violation of developer policy
WASHINGTON – Popular social media platform Twitter has effectively put an end to the ability to archive the deleted tweets of politicians from more than 30 countries.
Twitter’s official explanation for this move came from a company spokesman: “The ability to delete one’s tweets – for whatever reason – has been a long-standing feature of Twitter for all users. We built into our developer policy provisions a requirement that those accessing our APIs delete content that Twitter reports as deleted or expired.”
The Open State Foundation and the U.S.-based Sunlight Foundation had previously used Twitter’s application user interface – a set of protocols used to develop a software program – to archive tweets deleted by politicians.
“What elected politicians publicly say is a matter of public record,” Open State Foundation director Arjan El Fassed said. “Even when tweets are deleted, it’s part of parliamentary history.”
Twitter disagrees, couching its decision in terms of customer privacy.
“From time to time,” a company rep said, “we come upon apps or solutions that violate that [developer] policy. Recently, we identified several services that used the feature we built to allow for the deletion of tweets to instead archive and highlight them. We subsequently informed these services of their noncompliance and suspended their access to our APIs.”
Many are confused at Twitter’s sudden decision to block an App that has been in use since 2010 when Open State began their archiving program.
Twitter merely said, “We take our commitment to our users seriously and will continue to defend and respect our users’ voices in our product and platform.”
Twitter has previously been seen as an integral part of the greater democratization of society, a tool that easily allows people to hold politicians and governments accountable. Twitter’s recent efforts to diminish that transparency have not been well received.
As Fassed noted, “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.”
