Verge: Rights groups rail against Twitter’s Politwoops ban

OpenMedia together with other digital rights groups stood up for free speech and transparency against Twitter's Politwoops ban. Article by Sam Byford for The Verge Rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access, Free Press, and Human Rights Watch have joined in opposition to Twitter's recent crackdown on Politwoops, a network of sites that archived deleted tweets from politicians worldwide. In an open letter, the coalition says Twitter's ban "holds grave consequences for free expression and transparency around the world."

OpenMedia together with other digital rights groups stood up for free speech and transparency against Twitter's Politwoops ban.

Article by Sam Byford for The Verge

Rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access, Free Press, and Human Rights Watch have joined in opposition to Twitter's recent crackdown on Politwoops, a network of sites that archived deleted tweets from politicians worldwide. In an open letter, the coalition says Twitter's ban "holds grave consequences for free expression and transparency around the world."

"The right to information, free speech, and privacy protect people and enable them to hold the powerful to account," says Open State Foundation executive director Arjan El Fassed in a statement; the Open State Foundation is the Netherlands-based organization behind Politwoops. "By blocking Politwoops, Twitter has decided to forsake these values, and the only people who will benefit are the powerful."

"Imagine how nerve-racking — terrifying, even — tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable?" Twitter told the Open State Foundation by way of explanation at the time. "No one user is more deserving of that ability than another. Indeed, deleting a tweet is an expression of the user's voice." But in today's letter, the coalition argues against that reasoning, saying it "conflates transparency and accountability with privacy."

- Read more at The Verge