LONDON: Twitter has killed off Politwoops and Diplotwoops globally — a series of accounts that automatically monitored politicians’ profiles for deleted tweets and published them.
In June this year, the social network revoked the API access of the US version of Politwoops, leaving it unable to function. In a statement, Twitter said that the service “violates our developer agreement.”
Strangely, at the time it was only the US version of Politwoops that was banned. It was first developed by Dutch non-profit the Open State Foundation in 2010, and operated in 30 other jurisdictions, including Britain and the European Parliament.
These versions of the platform were left to run unhindered — until this weekend. In a blog post published on Sunday, the Open State Foundation confirmed that Twitter has decided to revoke API access for the remaining versions of Politwoops and and Diplotwoops.
Politwoops and Diplotwoops were a kind of social media watchdog. Sometimes the deleted tweets they flagged up were just typos; other times, they revealed politicians trying to distance themselves from prior statements or shift their position on an issue.
In one high-profile incident, Politwoops was able to highlight half a dozen politicians welcoming a US soldier and former Taliban captive back to the US — and then deleting their tweets after the case became politically charged.
