Twitter has made a small but significant change to the way deleted tweets appear when embedded on third-party sites. Since at least late March, the platform has started displaying a blank box on external sites when an embedded tweet has been deleted. The change was detailed in a post by Kevin Marks.
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The company has changed how it handles embedded tweets that have since been deleted, filling web pages across the Internet with blanks.
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Previously, a deleted tweet embedded in a web page would still display the text of the tweet. It seems that now that text has disappeared, leaving only a blank box. Twitter is changing web pages with deleted embedded tweets, hiding the text with JavaScript. To see the original text, you can disable JavaScript in your browser.
In a post, IndieWeb developer and former Google Developer advocate Kevin Marks criticized Twitter’s change, likening it to “a violation of the public record.” Marks cites former President Trump’s deleted tweets as an example of public interest content that should remain available, adding that Twitter’s new approach to deleted embedded tweets is “disturbing.” (See screenshots below.)
In a tweet responding to Marks’ concerns, Twitter Senior Product Manager Eleanor Harding said that Twitter is making this change to “respect that people have chosen to delete their Tweets.” Harding said that deleted tweet embeds will display a message instead of just leaving a completely blank box.
Marks isn't the only one raising concerns that the new approach to old tweets will hurt the web.
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Twitter announced Tuesday that it will soon be testing editable tweets through Twitter Blue, its premium subscription service. Between the change to embedded tweets and this controversial news, the company appears to be moving toward a philosophy that prioritizes its users’ intentions far above any concerns about archiving historical content. But critics of the feature argue that giving users the freedom to change their tweets after they post could exacerbate some of Twitter’s most intractable platform problems, including harassment and misinformation.
Information source: techcrunch.com
