The Week on Politwoops: Cases of Unintended Transparency
Welcome to another review of recent notable deleted tweets from politicians captured by Politwoops.
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Debra Hobbs, a Republican running for governor of Arkansas, held a meet-and-greet campaign event yesterday that was promoted on her Twitter feed, but the only tweet from the event of “Debra Hobbs greeting people” was removed. It featured an upside-down photo of a man holding donuts and chatting with the candidate near a vacant parking lot (rotated image seen at right).
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Another campaign with some unintended transparency was the account of Buddy Carter, a Republican running for Congress in Georgia, who deleted what appears to be an automated tweet of stats from the JustUnfollow service: “As regular as the sun – stats for the week: 17 new followers, 12 unfollowers.”
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Mayor Vincent C. Gray, D-D.C., or someone in his office removed their enthusiasm for “dating and mating” as he deleted that quote and link to a Washington Post article about the baby boom the city is experiencing.
Politwoops was a part of an article in Digital Trends earlier this week that discussed an interesting study from the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and covered the many reasons politicians have chosen to delete their tweets. It included an example of a messaging change from Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who removed a tweet in September about Obama’s energy policy with the term “job-killing War on Coal” and changed it to “economy-hurting War on Coal” in the still-live version.
As always, stay tuned to Politwoops for the latest messaging changes from politicians. Latest additions include Neil Riser and Vance McAllister who recently advanced to a runoff in the special election for Louisiana’s 5th district.