The Week on Politwoops: TweetDeck vulnerability hits the Hill, an impersonator and more

by
A series of deleted tweets from politicians who inadvertently shared a TweetDeck vulnerability from their accounts.
Deleted tweets via Politwoops.

It was another busy week for Politwoops with our archive growing substantially thanks to a vulnerability in TweetDeck that executed javascript code causing accounts seeing the issue to retweet and spread it. The vulnerability spread across the Hill and the aisle with Politwoops recording 119 deletions from almost as many politicians. Accounts stricken with this curious bug included the White House, Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., and Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo. After I noted the eruption of deletions on Twitter, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., responded succinctly, “woops.”

Another politician wrestling with Twitter issues this week was George Demos, a Republican candidate in New York’s 1st District, who frantically sent (and later deleted) more than 20 messages warning of an account not run by his campaign. The account not run by his campaign used a “0” instead of an “O” in @DEMOS4CONGRESS and understandably ignited concerns that folks would confuse the two accounts. His campaign account sent requests for assistance to Twitter’s support and safety accounts and encouraged his followers to block the account, tweeting, “ATTENTION CONSERVATIVES: Please BLOCK Impersonator Account going by name of @DEMOS4C0NGRESS and found at https://t.co/ag6fL5L3XQ.” Once the unaffiliated account disappeared, the campaign account for Demos inexplicably cleared all mention of the issue leaving Politwoops as the only record of the curious episode.

Other notable deletions this week include Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., who deleted a tweet yesterday from his official account saying, “Happy Father’s Day. Any favorite memories with your father or as a father yourself?” and the official account of Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who deleted a retweet of a user who said, “For those of you that asked.. My favorite active US Rep is Eric Swalwell @RepSwalwell.” Politwoops also continued to be cited in the media for the Sgt. Bergdahl deletions including the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Washington Times, CNN, NY Daily News, Breitbart, UPI, TPM and Twitchy.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s roundup and, as usual, please let me know if we’re missing any politicians from our system. Have a great weekend!