Skip to main content

Twitter agrees to restore archiving of politicians’ deleted tweets

Twitter agrees to restore archiving of politicians’ deleted tweets

Share this story

This summer, Twitter shut down Politwoops, a network of sites dedicated to archiving deleted, regrettable tweets from politicians. The decision was met with criticism by several rights groups arguing for the necessity of political transparency. Today Twitter announced it's bringing Politwoops back. In conjunction with the governmental transparency nonprofits Sunlight Foundation and The Open State Foundation, Twitter says it will work to get Politwoops up and running again. While no date has been specified for the return, the Sunlight Foundation says Politwoops' return should be "in the coming weeks."

Return of the 'woops

"This agreement is great news for those who believe that the world needs more transparency," Arjan El Fassed, director of the Open State Foundation, said in a statement. "Our next step is now to continue and expand our work to enable the public to hold public officials accountable for their public statements."

This decision doesn't come as too much of a surprise. Earlier this fall at Twitter's annual Flight developer conference, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that the decision to shut down Politwoops was a misstep by the company.

Correction, 10:22AM ET: The quote, from Arjan El Fassed, was originally attributed to Brett Solomon. We regret the error.