ProPublicaFeb 24, 2023

After a Decade of Tracking Politicians’ Deleted Tweets, Politwoops Is No More
--
Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, it has disabled the function we used to track the deleted Tweets of elected officials and political candidates — and the new method that Twitter says should identify deleted tweets appears to be broken.

Regardless of one's feelings about Twitter, this is a loss for transparency.

Thanks to @derekwillis for coming back to write this obit.

https://www.propublica.org/article/politwoops-deleted-tweets-twitter-politicians-musk

After a Decade of Tracking Politicians’ Deleted Tweets, Politwoops Is No More

Whether officials were deleting an embarrassing post or just correcting a typo, Politwoops tracked them all. But service changes made after Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter have rendered it impossible for us to continue tracking these tweets.

ProPublica
Show threadDB SchweinFeb 24, 2023
@ProPublica @derekwillis
Since the courts verified that tweets are public record for officials I feel like that might also be illegal, but IANAL
Show threadDerek Willis
@deirdrebeth @ProPublica It's not illegal - Twitter isn't fully government speech, despite what some courts have held.
Feb 24, 2023 at 6:34pmWeb
Show threadDB SchweinFeb 25, 2023
@derekwillis @ProPublica
If you post as John Smith, no. If you post as "Senator from Idaho", it is. That's what the courts said. If you want the caché of posting under your job title you have the responsibilities too. Just like posting sexist, racist, fascist shit as "CEO of Whatsit" loses you a job.
Show threadCarlRJFeb 25, 2023
@deirdrebeth @derekwillis @ProPublica need to find some way to make the public see it as distasteful / socially unacceptable for politicians to post on, much less conduct official business on, Twitter. It’s a private site with rules that are not conducive to official government use. Congress, the White House, and government agencies should have their own Mastodon instances •instead•.