The Week on Politwoops: deleting to get attention, honing news reactions and more

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A series of deleted tweets from Arizona congressional candidate Mikel Weisser caught by the Sunlight Foundation's Politwoops project.
Deletions via Politwoops.

This week on Politwoops included an Arizona candidate deleting on purpose to appear on the site, a governor changing their tone when reacting to infant mortality statistics, some lazy copy and pasting and more.

The campaign account for democratic congressional candidate for Arizona’s 4th District, Mikel Weisser, spent part of this week deleting tweets on purpose so they would appear on Politwoops. While this is hardly the first time politicians have used the site for their own gain (remember Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said, “The best way to get a message out is to tweet and delete“), Weisser took it a step farther by sharing and later deleting his own deletions, creating a deletion Ouroboros seen to the right. He ended his fascination with the site with a deletion saying, “Love You, @politwoops, http://t.co/TTOxDdZ0TY, But wouldn’t it be great if folks read my stuff w/out me having to delete it 1st?

Last weekend, the official account of Gov. Mary Fallin, R-Okla., shared a link to an article announcing new health data showing a drop in overall infant mortality rates (that still lag behind the national average) and an increase in mortality rates for black babies. Fallin’s account tweeted, “Great news! More babies are being born healthy in Oklahoma, and our infant mortality rate has hit a historic low” before deleting it an hour later. The account replaced it with a tweet saying, “Infant mortality down, but need to continue to build on positive gains to ensure more babies live healthy&happy lives” and refused to respond to requests for comment.

The official account for Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., deleted a tweet in an attempt to fix a typo and accidentally included the copy and pasted his name, Twitter handle and time stamp in the replacement. Feel free to observe the image of the change below with the appropriate anthem:

A deletion and its replacement by Senator John Hoeven, R-N.D.

Finally this week, the official account of Gov. Mike Pence, R-Ind., deleted a tweet sharing the hourly wage of 30 new employees at a VOSS water facility and $en. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., deleted a tweet mentioning a proposed EPA rule named the “Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule” and changed it to just mentioning “the carbon emissions rule.” Neither accounts responded to my requests to explain the deletions. Have a great weekend and as always, shoot me an email with any accounts we’re missing!