Should we have the right to save the tweets politicians delete?

This week Twitter killed two third-party tools that revealed when politicians secretly deleted their tweets. The decision has not only disappointed advocates of government transparency, but it has also left some wondering why a company that has made communication around the world more open would take such an aggressive step.

It started in May, when Twitter suspended API access for Politwoops, the Sunlight Foundation's tool that tracked and republished deleted tweets from U.S. politicians (we used it to reveal hypocrites in the wake of the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner exchange).

But the international versions, which were managed by the Open State Foundation and tracked politicians in such fledgling democracies as Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey and some Eastern European countries, as well as Diplotwoops, which followed diplomats, continued unabated — until Friday. Read more...