Vatican Deletes All Of Pope Benedict's Tweets

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the erasing-history dept

Thu, Feb 28th 2013 1:58pm — Mike Masnick

It was just a couple months ago that Pope Benedict began tweeting to great fanfare and attention. He quickly had well over a million followers. Of course, as you may have heard, the Pope decided to become the first Pope in about 600 years to retire. And, now that this has taken effect... the Vatican appears to have deleted every one of his tweets.

That is, uh, not how you use Twitter. Sure, tweets can be deleted, but it seems particularly bizarre to delete the entire historical record of this one Pope's tweets, even if there were a small number of them. Of course, at the very least, this means they won't have to deal with the ex-Pope still having his Twitter login going and rogue tweeting from retirement.

Update: As a few people have pointed out, the Vatican has set up an archive of his tweets on their own website. Still doesn't explain why they had to erase the originals.

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Filed Under: pope, pope benedict, tweets, vatican

33 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:17pm

History erased...
Its the Ministry of Truth in action...
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radarmonkey (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:19pm

Standard Operating Procedure
The RCC is doing what it normally does. Eliminates evidence, sweeps a problem under the rug, and pretends nothing happened. Why should anyone be surprised?
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PGP_Protector (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:19pm

Archive
So
1) Where's the Archive of all the tweets that someone always seems to have ?
2) How long tell they go after the Archives saying they also need to be deleted ?
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harbingerofdoom (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:23pm

personally, id rather enjoy watching the ex pope doing a stint of rogue tweeting and the resultant chaos it would create.
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PGP_Protector (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:25pm

Re: Archive -> Location
So the Vatican News has an Archive, unknown if it's been tampred with though.
http://www.news.va/en/twitter_archive
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:26pm

Does He
lose his per diem of 1 little boy toy per week too?
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gorehound (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:26pm

The Vatican is just doing what it has always done.
Nothing new here at all.
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Internet Zen Master (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:28pm

Just speculating here but...
It's possible that the Pontifex twitter account is the official twitter account of the office of the Pope, so it's possible they deleted all of His Holiness Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus' tweets in order to make room for tweets from the upcoming Pope?

Then again, I don't (nor ever plan) to use Twitter. Never saw the appeal of being able to make a fool out of yourself in front of the entire world in 140 characters or less.

If the new Pope sets up a completely different account, then its likely someone at the Vatican was deliberately tossing tweets in the memory hole. Why they'd do that I have no clue.

The Zen Master says, "We'll see."
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Nibb, 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:32pm

Archive
http://www.news.va/en/twitter_archive

Archived tweets here
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zem, 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:38pm

This is not the pope you are looking for.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:42pm

Re: Just speculating here but...
It seems this is likely. If the twitter account is for the office, they probably deleted the tweets so that no one could confuse the old popes tweets for the new popes and vice versa.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:50pm

update
We added an update to the story with a link to the archive they placed on the vatican website. Still don't understand why they deleted the original tweets though. Seems weird.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:54pm

Re: update
"It's possible that the Pontifex twitter account is the official twitter account of the office of the Pope, so it's possible they deleted all of His Holiness Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus' tweets in order to make room for tweets from the upcoming Pope?"

Will just leave this here from an earlier comment. If the Twitter account is meant to be from the pope, tweets not from the pope(current) shouldn't be there. If they link to the archive, then they aren't hiding anything, just preparing it for the next pope, assuming he wants to use it.
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Zos (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 2:55pm

more importantly, who were the 8 people he was following, and was one of them facebook God?

https://www.facebook.com/TheGoodLordAbove?fref=ts
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2013 @ 3:09pm

I'm guessing he suggested banning sex with little boys and they told him retire or die.
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Wally (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 3:22pm

Re: update
My wife grew up roman Catholic, and for once it pays to be a Christian on this sight ;-P

Ok, the simple explanation is that Pope Benedict was not the given name of the man they put under the pope's hat. That twitter account was meant for the man who had the title of "Pope". The Vatican would be very glad to archive all what Pope Benedict said and they always do.

Pope Benedict is a former Pope and is now a slightly higher ranking Bishop that has once been a pope. His rank is now Pope Eminent, his title remains Pope Benedict. The rank is that of a retiree like Former President Bill Clinton.

The reason for the deletion of his Twitter feed is simple, the Vatican is saving it for the next Pope. When he dies or retires, they will archive it and do the same.

Yes, even form a Nazarene background such as mine, it seems weird in deed, but in the words of my fellow Nazarenes..its their way :-)
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2013 @ 3:29pm

Does anyone get the impression that Fritz's resignation didn't go down well with the boys??? I don't know what's funnier - the press frenzy surrounding this retirement or the fury of the various Vatican minions scurrying to erase all existence of the current/previous Pope.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2013 @ 3:51pm

Re:
So the Vatican has always deleted ex-popes' Tweets? Wow, how long has Twitter really been around? Talk about hidden history!
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2013 @ 3:54pm

Re: Does He
Yes. The little boy toy will now be sent to your dad's house.
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Wally (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 3:55pm

Re: update
Mike Mansick, may I change my profile picture to one of the snow flakes and see how long it takes people to notice that no matter which article I comment on....it never changes?
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special-interesting (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 6:24pm

Anyone pay attention to that we pay attention to of what are attentive of? (this is one of the best statements I have ever spoken) (are we aware of our awareness of what?)

Revisionist history. If you don't like what has happened... erase it. (classic 'revisionist history')

The Vatican passes up the opportunities of many things. (please pay me for advice) ahahaha

Hint: celibacy is a valued thing. (where do you spent your life's energy) Don't waste it. And. Don't force it. (are you really paying attention to your own values? What is the definition of Hypocrisy)

A minister has a wife and family but a priest has avowed sex. The requirement that all ministers are priests is... weird (self destructive?) On the level of Pope John Paul II... how do you measure?

At the level of the average reader: where do you spend your energy? What is the different between thinking and thought.

What is awareness anyway?

Disclaimer: am a non practicing Christian.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2013 @ 7:02pm

Maybe they just didn't want people getting confused as to which Pope made which tweets? It'd make sense to me, but I don't use Twitter. I guess it's actually unnecessary?
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Yo-Yo, 28 Feb 2013 @ 7:36pm

Gotta call it: You went from zero to Dan Brown in 5.1 seconds.
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Internet Zen Master (profile), 28 Feb 2013 @ 8:06pm

Re: update
Like I said before, it probably because Benedict's not the current Pope, and since account is for the Papal office aka the position of being the Pope, it kinda makes sense that they'd clean out the last guy's tweets and filing them away in an archive. Pretty sure they'll do the same for the next Pope when he kicks the bucket (this of course assumes twitter will still be around at that point).

It's simple spring cleaning, that's all.

Oh, and to the ACs who keep making pedo priest jabs at Benedict: get some new material. A jab at the RCC over the pedo priest scandals is good every so often, but when you do it, at least try to do it with a little style.
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Abara, 1 Mar 2013 @ 1:32am

Re: update
In your screenshot of the twitter account it reads "Sede Vacante" : "the seat being vacant", Letting us assume that the twitter account doesnt represent the pope but the Church as a whole...
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Ninja (profile), 1 Mar 2013 @ 2:23am

They could have made a generic account such as @CurrentPope or something and just switched ownership. And in all seriousness I doubt Benedict ever twitted anything, he just said what he wanted twitted and someone with more skills did it. That's one of the problems of the Church. They are old. And they are failing to evolve with times. And that's costing them a fair bit of followers.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2013 @ 7:23am

Re: History erased...
They just moved them to the Vatican website so they could get some clicks on their ads and make a few cents!
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2013 @ 7:24am

Re: Archive
The Library of Congress is archiving all of twitter.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2013 @ 7:28am

Re: Re: update
Ok, the simple explanation is that Pope Benedict was not the given name of the man they put under the pope's hat.

Ahhh, so that's why he's on Twitter and not Facebook. Facebook requires you to use your real name.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2013 @ 7:31am

Re: Re: update
This brings up a good point. Had they left the old pope's tweets, they would have been displayed beside the new pope's profile picture.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2013 @ 7:36am

Re:
Why no 20-something popes?
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Wally (profile), 1 Mar 2013 @ 9:46am

Re: Re: Re: update
Facebook only requires you to use a real name, but it does not have to be yours. The idea, in short, is simply that the twitter account is reserved for the the one person who has the rank of Pope.
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Wally (profile), 1 Mar 2013 @ 9:48am

Re: Re: Re: update
Precisely ^_^

It should be noted that I do not take credit for that explanation. My lovely wife was the one who gave me that information.
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