Oops Now You Can Track the Tweets Politicians Tried to Delete

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/oops-now-you-can-track-the-tweets-politicians-tried-to-delete/257853/?google_editors_picks=true

by eplanit • 14 years ago

29 17 14 years ago

theatlantic.com

slowpoke2• 14 years ago

The most important thing in politics is transparency, which many politicians vehemently oppose for their own selfish reasons. But, as the representatives of the people, they have to be held accountable for everything they do. Little steps such as this wonderful project go a long way towards this goal.

mattmanser• 14 years ago

Or you can look at it the other way that they're people who make mistakes but we somehow want them to magically be perfect human beings.

And then you can look on something like this as a bit weird and creepy, the digital equivalent to the ultra nerd you come across at gaming night who just has to correct you about constantly because he hasn't learnt basic social skills.

slowpoke2• 14 years ago

Interestingly, I pretty much expected this answer. Yes, politicians are, in the end, humans, too. They make errors and we need to acknowledge that. However, being held accountable for what you do does not exclude that. The point is not to punish for every little error, it's to be able to differentiate the small errors from major fuck-ups, deliberate deception and corruption - which is of course, as I said, not in the interest of a lot of politicians.

I don't think this is creepy, either. If you decide to become a politician, this should just be part of what you sign up for - either accept that you will be held fully accountable for everything you do and say, or don't become a politician.

empika2• 14 years ago

This looks like it breaches Twitters rules of the road. Specifically items 1.D and 2.4.B.

https://dev.twitter.com/terms/api-terms

sp332• 14 years ago

4. Be a good partner to Twitter

B. Respect the features and functionality embedded with or included in Twitter Content or the Twitter API. Do not attempt to interfere with, intercept, disrupt, filter, or disable any features of the Twitter API or Twitter service, and you should only surface actions that are organically displayed on Twitter.

For example, your Service should execute the unfavorite and delete actions by removing all relevant messaging and Twitter Content, not by publicly displaying to other end users that the Tweet was unfavorited or deleted.

Edit: I know there are some exceptions. For example, the Library of Congress (in the US) is building a permanent archive of all tweets older than 6 months. They have said that if you wait longer than that to delete your tweet, they won't remove it from the archive. I wonder if Twitter would consider a 24-hour rule for official political accounts? If the tweet is left up for 24 hours, then even if it's deleted from the twitter stream, you don't have to delete it from your archive.

empika2• 14 years ago

Thanks, I should have indeed just copy and pasted the terms. Here is 1.D

Respect the privacy and sharing settings of Twitter Content. Do not share, or encourage or facilitate the sharing of protected Twitter Content. Promptly change your treatment of Twitter Content (for example, deletions, modifications, and sharing options) as changes are reported through the Twitter API.

kevinconroy• 14 years ago

It would be much more interesting to see what they try to reverse in speeches. I know that various news and media outlets (including the Daily Show) highlight this from time-to-time, but unless you've watched all of their speeches, I don't know of any way to easily see what politicians have said over time and how their views have changed, evolved, or reversed.

yummyfajitas• 14 years ago

Was Stephen Fincher really the best example of politicians deleting tweets that they could find? If only there were examples more significant than Stephen Fincher's ruminations on bad TV. Maybe something like a politician named Anthony Dong who tweeted a photo of his dong and resigned from the senate as a result?

If there were examples like that, maybe we'd really be able to see what this service is useful for. Oh well, too bad nothing like that ever happened.

[edit: just noticed all their examples of bad tweets come from one party. Strange. Is the other party immune to bad tweets?]

lukejohnnuttall• 14 years ago

Maybe they need a time delay - http://bleep.ly/

mjw2• 14 years ago

Is there a human filter on this stuff?

I ask because, say a politician posts and then deletes something embarrassing on a personal level but which isn't particularly relevant to their political stance.

They are human beings too and I don't feel there's much to gain by being a dick and re-posting this sort of thing on an automated basis. It will just get their backs up and make them a lot more wary about what they post in future. Net loss for transparency on political issues.

This is something traditional journalists are good at -- knowing when to break a story and when to show a bit of discretion in order to earn people's trust and avoid unnecessarily putting people on the defensive.

anamax2• 14 years ago

> This is something traditional journalists are good at -- knowing when to break a story and when to show a bit of discretion in order to earn people's trust and avoid unnecessarily putting people on the defensive.

I disagree. This is precisely where traditional journalists go bad. It's also where their biases show. (See Obama's Chicago church vs Romney's Mormonism for an example.)

Trading (non) coverage for access is PR.

mjw2• 14 years ago

What's the answer though? every politician should be hounded in every aspect of their private life just so we can avoid accusations of bias?

That's going to drive good people out of politics. (Cue jokes about 'they already left a while ago').

Perhaps in part it's an american thing. The political culture there seems particularly personal and nasty. It's not something I'd like to see spread unnecessarily.

(And by the way I was referring specifically to discretion on non-politically-relevant aspects of people's personal life, not selective coverage of political topics. Although I realise it's a blurry line, one has to draw it somewhere.)

wesley• 14 years ago

How exactly can they get to tweets that have only been posted for a few seconds (and then deleted)? Does the API still return deleted tweets for some time?

zemo• 14 years ago

the streaming API publishes the tweets as they come in. Afterwards, if the tweet has been deleted, the streaming API sends out a delete message. That's... the only way to do real time. Otherwise it... wouldn't be real time.

chaistudios• 14 years ago

John Boehner is on the ball.

Speaker John Boehner ( R )

You know what else has been deleted? Jobs in the Obama economy. Where are the jobs? #politwoops

Speaker John BoehnerDeleted 13 minutes ago after 36 seconds, originally posted via web

tbeseda• 14 years ago

At least one member of his social media staff is pretty smart. Posting a tweet (with a #politwoops hashtag, no less!) deleting it, knowing it would appear on the politwoops site in a perfect context for his message.

see: http://politwoops.sunlightfoundation.com/user/SpeakerBoehner

Oops Now You Can Track the Tweets Politicians Tried to Delete

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