After receiving flak regarding their controversial recent change that made deleted tweets on embedded third party pages appear as blank spaces, twitter has silently rolled back this change. This was brought to public attention by twitter user @RuinDig.
As of now, in place of a deleted embedded tweet, readers see the original text of the tweet, following the twitter user’s name, and their twitter handle.
Responding to the latest move, twitter spokesperson Remi Duhé said “After considering the feedback we heard, we’re rolling back this change for now while we explore different options, We appreciate those who shared their points of view – your feedback helps us make Twitter better.”
Twitter’s change to remove the text of deleted embedded tweets from third party pages using Javascript was pointed out earlier by Kevin marks. In response to this tweet, Twitter senior product manager Eleanor Harding defended the company, saying the move was intended to honor the users’ wishes. The internet did not buy into the narrative, and accused twitter of “tampering with public record”
Twitter has also faced it’s fare share of problems with the edit button. While it’s been a highly demanded feature by the users, it also poses a threat to public record, since a user could edit their tweet to say something completely different from what it said initially.
Twitter has become a platform of extreme social relevance, with public figures and politicians consistently using it to deliver official public statements. While they carry this huge responsibility, Twitter has been facing difficulties finding a balance between user convenience and user accountability. While twitter is expected to come up with a different solution to deal with deleted embedded tweets, hopefully it doesn’t involve completely hiding the context of the tweet.
