Twitter Now Flipflopping On The Issue Of Archiving Deleted Tweets By Public Verified Figures

from the twitter-class-war dept

One of the stranger stories from the past year or so in the social media space was the saga of Politwoops, the service that archives politicians' and public officials' tweets that have since been deleted. Politwoops had operated for a time before Twitter killed it off, claiming it violated its ToS. Twitter also claimed that the reason it had ended Politwoops' ability to operate was to protect the privacy of its users, including the public officials that were the target of Politwoops. Then Twitter suddenly allowed Politwoops to make its return, saying:

“We need to make sure we are serving all these organizations and developers in the best way, because that is what will make Twitter great. We need to listen, we need to learn, and we need to have this conversation with you. We want to start that today.”

Basically, while Twitter still insists it's all about protecting the privacy of users of its service, it has now carved out a special place for public officials and aspiring politicians in which the archiving of deleted tweets is acceptable. It's a strange kind of reverse case in which being a notable public official suddenly affords less privilege, rather than more. And, while it's great that Politwoops has returned, the move left everyone uncertain as to exactly how Twitter would apply its user-privacy standard moving forward.

Perhaps now things are a bit more clear, however, as a similar service, PostGhost, has now been shut down over the same ToS issues and user privacy excuses that initially doomed Politwoops.

PostGhost, which had just launched this week, kept copies of tweets sent by verified users with more than 10,000 followers. In Twitter's letter, posted by PostGhost, the company said that recording deleted tweets was a violation of the service's terms. PostGhost agreed to comply and shut down, but in a lengthy response, argued that such users are "public figures" that should have their tweets recorded.

"We believe that for such prominent verified Twitter users, the public has a right to see their public Twitter history, whether or not they grow to regret the statements they've made," PostGhost's statement reads.

Politwoops, meanwhile, remains up and active. So, it seems that notoriety and status as a public figure are not the standard by which Twitter applies its tweet archiving rules. Instead, the space carved out for politicians and public servants appears to be a special one where the likes of celebrities and professional athletes do not operate. But if that is the line Twitter wishes to draw in its cyber-sand, it's a strange one.

In areas of law, the status of public figure-hood, as opposed to public servant, is typically the standard by which all kinds of laws are applied (such as the availability to parody, applicability of defamation laws, etc.). And there's good reason for this: the goal is to foster conversation and knowledge that is in the public interest. The public's interest need not be confined to politics, thankfully, yet Twitter's choices appear to reserve separate rules for the political class. I can understand why Twitter might think this makes sense. After all, I find the drunken midnight thoughts of senators far more compelling than those of a UFC fighter. But my interest isn't the same as the public interest.

Twitter can engage in this flipflopping, of course. It's their platform, after all, and they can keep it as arbitrarily closed as they like. The question becomes whether that makes the service more or less useful for the everyday Twitter user. And that's a question that I think has an obvious answer.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: deleted tweets, postghost, public record, terms of service
Companies: postghost, twitter