#uhoh

May 30, 2012 1:00 PM

Sometimes politicians say something stupid on Twitter, and then delete the tweet. Politwoops re-publishes those tweets.
posted by Chrysostom (37 comments total)

Rep. Keith Ellison ( D )

Test

Clearly, a man with something to hide.
posted by Roentgen at 1:07 PM on May 30, 2012 [18 favorites]

It's kind of a cool idea... at first. Long term, I wonder if projects like these will encourage politicians to delegate tweeting to staffers and make the whole enterprise calculated, deliberate, and boring.
posted by BobbyVan at 1:08 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

In between the birferism and the Romney cheerleading, Donald Trump is tweet-pimping Serta mattresses.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:09 PM on May 30, 2012

Rep. Keith Ellison ( D )

Test

Clearly he's testing nuclear weapons in Iran. WU,S.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:12 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

.... make the whole enterprise calculated, deliberate, and boring.

Honestly, I could do with a bit more deliberation and boredom in my politics.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:16 PM on May 30, 2012 [8 favorites]

Isn't it staffers doing the tweeting already?
posted by Triplanetary at 1:22 PM on May 30, 2012 [4 favorites]

Most of these don't seem at all embarrassing. Is there a filter that identifies which ones are actually "stupid"?
posted by brain_drain at 1:28 PM on May 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

Seems like this would be way more interesting with context applied.
posted by batmonkey at 1:31 PM on May 30, 2012

I'm sure some of these are just innocuous deletions where they didn't get the links to the NRA birther site right the first go around.
posted by Artw at 1:34 PM on May 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

Maybe I'm lazy, but it would be nice to get an explanation of why they are presumed to have deleted each tweet. Otherwise they all just look like a bunch of really boring tweets.
posted by Joh at 1:38 PM on May 30, 2012 [5 favorites]

I have been having issues looking at anyone's twitter for days. Anyone else? I'm curious to see how many of these were immediately reposted.
posted by Night_owl at 1:38 PM on May 30, 2012

Seems like this would be way more interesting with context applied.

I doubt it.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:38 PM on May 30, 2012 [4 favorites]

Yeah, I agree it's mostly staffers tweeting. A few, like Senator Chuck Grassley, apparently do the tweeting themselves.

@benito.strauss: I like twitter because it has the potential for being a disruptive form of communication... really, anything that shakes up the binary monotony of the two-party system and the faux-outrage-of-the-day cycle driven by 24 hour news is good in my book. If this project discourages politicians from engaging directly with the medium, it will have been a failure.

But that said, most of the deleted tweets seem pretty banal and uninteresting, so my concern might be misplaced.
posted by BobbyVan at 1:40 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Is there a filter that identifies which ones are actually "stupid"?

Usually identified by a capital "R" next to the name.
posted by hal9k at 1:41 PM on May 30, 2012 [22 favorites]

Maybe I'm lazy, but it would be nice to get an explanation of why they are presumed to have deleted each tweet.

I'm sure this is completely automated, so most of them are innocuous. I wonder if they have plans to highlight the "interesting" deletions at some point, or if this is just supposed to be a resource for politics junkies to scour through.

(At the very least they could be weeding out the "I just made a typo" delete-and-repost ones, which appears to be most of them.)
posted by ook at 1:47 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Illustrating yet again that even our most boring behavior (e.g. innocuous editing) lives on forever on the Internet.
posted by bearwife at 1:58 PM on May 30, 2012

I like twitter because it has the potential for being a disruptive form of communication... really, anything that shakes up the binary monotony of the two-party system and the faux-outrage-of-the-day cycle

Do you actually read political tweets? They're practically a(n) (faux) outrage a minute.
posted by octobersurprise at 2:03 PM on May 30, 2012

CongressmanBobTurner ( R )
2day, let us honor the memory of the brave men & women who gave their lives in the line of service 2 our country. http://t.co/ArZRgj0i #NY09

Congressman Bob Turner:

   2 Crazy
+ 2 Be
   ______
   4 Gotten
posted by griphus at 2:05 PM on May 30, 2012 [6 favorites]

Otherwise they all just look like a bunch of really boring tweets.

Yeah, there's not a whole lot of stupid here. Sorta pointless.

If it was curated, it could be really cool.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:17 PM on May 30, 2012

> ....really, anything that shakes up the binary monotony of the two-party system and the faux-outrage-of-the-day cycle driven by 24 hour news is good in my book....

Me too, but Twitter seems much more likely to provide fodder for the fauxtrage du jour machines than to tamp it down. I think it's inherent in its bumper-sticker length restrictions.
posted by benito.strauss at 2:19 PM on May 30, 2012

Curation would raise other issues.

What it needs is a voting system – thumbs up, thumbs down – and a leaderboard view.

Or perhaps ranking them by the number of retweets made through Politwoops.

Just something to show which ones readers have thought were the most noteworthy.
posted by Wataki at 2:21 PM on May 30, 2012

Do you actually read political tweets? They're practically a(n) (faux) outrage a minute.

Twitter seems much more likely to provide fodder for the fauxtrage du jour machines than to tamp it down. I think it's inherent in its bumper-sticker length restrictions.

You're both right. Twitter is a noisy, herdy medium -- definitely not the answer to problems in our discourse. As things stand, I'm supportive of anything that permits politicians to stray from rehearsed talking points.
posted by BobbyVan at 2:25 PM on May 30, 2012

What it needs is a voting system – thumbs up, thumbs down – and a leaderboard view.

You'd have to score it just on total number of thumbs, though, regardless of direction (because everyone's going to upvote or downvote based on their own political leanings...)
posted by ook at 2:32 PM on May 30, 2012

Yep, pretty pointless. I valiantly clicked through all the way to page three and didn't see anything interesting. If you're going to just vomit up every single deleted tweet regardless of context, what's the point of wading through it all to look for the good stuff? Wikileaks this ain't.
posted by Gator at 2:36 PM on May 30, 2012

Wow, these people are missing out on the torrents of stupidity that spew fron Tony Abbot's mouth on a daily basis. Oh well, I suppose there is only so much disk space
posted by mattoxic at 3:14 PM on May 30, 2012

Mike Lee
Uh oh, @BernieSanders can't stop spouting socialist nonsense.
Reply Retweet Favorite

Bernie Sanders
@MikeLee Uh oh, @BernieSanders ran out of fucks to give. Check and mate, bitch.
Reply Retweet Favorite
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:16 PM on May 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yeah - this needs some voting or curating or something to pull the good ones out of the noise. It looks like many of these are just deleted before an edited version is posted.
posted by rmd1023 at 3:17 PM on May 30, 2012

Is there a filter that identifies which ones are actually "stupid"?

Usually identified by a capital "R" next to the name.

It's empirical
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:27 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Sure there are some flaws, and a ranking system would be ideal, but overall this does more good than harm by keeping politicians "honest". Even if it means staffers wind up doing the tweeting in the long run it's not a good argument to do away with it. I don't think that would happen anyway; after all, Politifact doesn't stop politicians from out-right lying or checking their facts before making statements.
posted by UnbearableBear at 3:42 PM on May 30, 2012

Nobody's arguing that it needs to be done away with. It's just pointless.
posted by Gator at 3:55 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

So it simply scans their twitter feeds, caches it, and then puts up the ones that no longer are on the feed? Surely someone will game this to-

Denny Rehberg ( R )
If you think twitter mistakes on #politwoops are bad, just wait until you see the regulatory mistakes of the Obama Administration!

Deleted about 1 hour ago after 52 seconds, originally posted via web

- oh. Well played, Congressman!

Also, if the tweets are deleted... then how do we know the validity of the tweets that politwoops posts? Couldn't they just make shit up?
posted by hincandenza at 4:08 PM on May 30, 2012 [5 favorites]

Found a couple. [I have highlighted the error].

Gerry Connolly ( d )
Told @TheFix on MSNBC's @dailyrundown that we need to pass lefislation to precent interest rate hike for student loans. -Staff

Kenny Marchant ( r )
#Texas named one of the friendless places to start a small business:

Allen West ( r )
President is ridiculously irresposible in denying Keystone Project, my statement here: http://t.co/Zo5510Rg

Jackie Speier ( d )
Tornado warnings cut short our visit to Birmingham. Drove past the Kelly Ingram Park were kids quietly protesting were hosed down.
posted by Rashomon at 4:25 PM on May 30, 2012

If you think twitter mistakes on #politwoops are bad, just wait until you see the regulatory mistakes of the Obama Administration!

Oh man, that is brilliant. I hope all the politicians realize what a gold mine of free publicity this pointless tool is and utilize it to the fullest.
posted by Gator at 4:28 PM on May 30, 2012

I have a feeling this is going to end up like Cursebird, only instead of folks making tweets with swears just to be seen on another site, it'll be hee-larious tweets from Congresspeople. Which will only be visible on this one site.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:30 PM on May 30, 2012

> As things stand, I'm supportive of anything that permits politicians to stray from rehearsed talking points.

Sort of "first we have to break it loose from where it's currently stuck, then we can move it to some place better"? I see your point there.
posted by benito.strauss at 4:43 PM on May 30, 2012

@mrgrimm

What if we edited it instead of curating it, would that work as good
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 7:55 PM on May 30, 2012

I'm supportive of anything that permits politicians to stray from rehearsed talking points.

I don't know why straying from rehersed talking points is necessarily a thing to be desired. Representative X could dash across the House floor naked and while that would certainly be a departure from rehersed talking points it wouldn't advance any agenda except the lulz. And any politician who does decide to honestly tell us she wants to sell the country to highest bidder isn't likely to do so in 140 characters.

Twitter is a good thing in so far as it provides another avenue for the ordinary person to contact their representatives—I can tweet my Govenor and tell her she should keep her ass in the state instead of running off to campaign for Scott Walker. But that's no different, basically, from email or phone calls. It's foolish to expect Twitter to remedy any fundamental problems of our polity. You'd be better off supporting campaign reform.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:06 PM on May 30, 2012