Open government and human rights groups will be cheering today as Twitter announced a new agreement with Politwoops, a website that archives tweets deleted by politicians and other public officials.
Twitter pissed off many organisations – including us – earlier in the year when it blocked Politwoops’ API access. This made it impossible for the site to carry out its mission, and for the rest of us to bask joyfully in the fuck ups of pollies and their social media teams.
At a giant nerd conference in October Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey alluded to a possible future reenabling of the API: “We have a responsibility to continue to empower organisations that bring more transparency to public dialogue, such as Politwoops.”
Today Twitter released a statement declaring it had kissed and made up with the developers and operators of Politwoops in the hope of bringing “more transparency to public dialogue.”
Executive Director of global digital rights organisation Access Now, Brett Solomon called the move a “giant step forward” for political accountability and the public interest.
We’re pretty fucking chuffed too.
Source: Twitter.
