Image: Anthony Quintano/Flickr
Politwoops and Diplotwoops, sites that track and archive tweets deleted by politicians, have been shut down completely months after the US version of the tool was suspended.The account was born out of a hackathon in the Netherlands in 2010 and was further developed by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan government transparency organization. It worked by plugging into Twitter's API to automatically log Tweets from politicians and publish those that were deleted. On Sunday, Open State Foundation announced in a blog post that Twitter had suspended API access for Politwoops sites in 30 countries in addition to the US version that was shut down previously. Twitter said its decision came after "thoughtful internal deliberation and close consideration of a number of factors.""Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable? No one user is more deserving of that ability than another. Indeed, deleting a tweet is an expression of the user's voice," the company said.Arjan El Fassed, the director of the Open State Foundation said in a statement that "what elected politicians publicly say is a matter of public record.Even when tweets are deleted, it's part of parliamentary history," he said. "These tweets were once posted and later deleted. What politicians say in public should be available to anyone. This is not about typos but it is a unique insight on how messages from elected politicians can change without notice."The 30 countries where the tool was shut down include the European parliament, the UK, and Canada.