Politwoops, a digital archive of public tweets deleted by politicians, is coming back online after reaching an agreement with Twitter. It's a big deal for transparency. It's also a big deal for Twitter as a signal of where it's headed under co-founder and new CEO Jack Dorsey.
Last summer, Twitter effectively shut down the project by cutting off its access to Twitter's API. The company noted at the time that preserving deleted tweets violated user privacy and its developer agreement. The Sunlight Foundation, which runs the US-based version of Politwoops, objected that what elected officials say in public is a matter of public record, and that transparency of that record leads to more accountability.
Twitter now appears to agree with that argument. After returning to the company as CEO, Dorsey publicly apologized to developers for how it has treated them in the past. In a keynote address at its developer's conference last year, Dorsey said Twitter has a responsibility to organizations like Politwoops if it wants to serve as a social networking tool that empowers free and transparent dialogue around the world. But, to do so, Twitter needs to be open and transparent itself.
Dorsey is now delivering on that promise. On Thursday, the Sunlight Foundation, along with digital transparency organization the Open State Foundation, reached an agreement with Twitter to allow API access to Politwoops. "The understanding reached last week has been welcomed by all those who believe the world needs more political transparency," said Arjan El Fassed, the director of the Open State Foundation, which developed Politwoops and operates several of its accounts globally. "Our next step is to continue and expand our work to enable the public to hold public officials accountable for their public statements."
First launched in 2012, Politwoops grew to include dozens of countries before it was shut down. It's now back online for 25 countries, including the Netherlands, Chile, and Germany, as well as the European Union. The Sunlight Foundation is currently working to get the US version up and running again; it hopes to be back online in the coming weeks.
For Twitter, the return of Politwoops marks a first step. Under Dorsey's guidance, Twitter is demonstrating its commitment to open dialogue, allowing powerful voices to be held accountable in public. But Dorsey will have to do more than fix old mistakes to prove Twitter's openness. Granting API access to Politwoops serves, after all, as another reminder that Twitter isn't so much a public sphere as a space that's privately controlled.
