United kingdom Daily news: U.S. Politicians, watch out! Website catches all political Tweets deleted in haste, so that we can enjoy them at our leisure

Kamis, 31 Mei 2012

U.S. Politicians, watch out! Website catches all political Tweets deleted in haste, so that we can enjoy them at our leisure

U.S. Politicians, watch out! Website catches all political Tweets deleted in haste, so that we can enjoy them at our leisure

By Eddie Wrenn

PUBLISHED: 11:05 EST, 31 May 2012 | UPDATED: 11:44 EST, 31 May 2012

All of us are guilty of an accidental text, email, or otherwise message which we'd rather not have made public.

But with Twitter and Facebook, there has always been that ability to delete the message, and urgently hope no-one saw it - or worse, screen-grabbed it - in time.

But a canny service, called Politiwoops, has launched to capture all the Tweets that U.S. politicians delete in haste - and what's more, it has been capturing them in secret for six months.

The service already has 3,000 recovered Tweets on the books, most of them apparently involving Republicans taking pot-shots at President Obama.

A couple of politicians - having heard about Politwoops - took advantage by tweeting - then deleting - messages about Obama

A couple of politicians - having heard about Politwoops - took advantage by tweeting and then deleting messages about Obama

Some deletes are due to politicians correcting spelling mistakes - others are to protect embarrassments

Politiwoops is produced by the Sunlight Foundation, which as it names implies, aims to make government more accountable and open.

The website is based on a website that originated in the Netherlands and has spread to 12 other countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain and Estonia.

Details included with each Tweet include which political party the politician belongs to, when they were deleted, and how long they were 'live' for before they vanished.

Naturally, some tweets are deleted for simple reasons, such as spelling errors or because the tweet was nothing more the phone being left unlocked in the pocket and accidentally sending a string of garbage characters followed by the 'Send' key.

The log of politicians being kept include all members of Congress and presidential candidates, and it will stay running for, according to Sunlight Foundation spokeswoman Liz Bartolomeo, 'as long as the Twitter firehose exists'.

There is little of new scandalous note up there at the moment, but it is a reminder to politicians to be careful what they Tweet, because from now on, it doesn't matter if no-one's listening... because someone will still be listening.