Twitter's reasoning is pretty dumb: Imagine how nerve-racking - terrifying, even - giving a press conference would be if everything you said was immutable and irrevocable!? Words that come out of your mouth can't be unsaid and words put up on the internet can't be undone, although people will certainly try. If you say something wrong, it's better to clarify, retract or apologize with an additional sentence, instead of pretending you never said anything at all. Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable? No one user is more deserving of that ability than another. Indeed, deleting a tweet is an expression of the user’s voice.
This consternates me. Politicians are public servants, and their official public discourse falls under the category of public record. If a politician writes something on twitter, using the name associated with his/her political office, then it counts as public record. If they're so stupid not to know that the stuff they post to their official twitter accounts is public, then they're not qualified to be a public official. How can this be happening at the same time corporations are classified as people? Anyone care to play devil's advocate?
I love playing devils advocate and even i wont argue this. The sites sound like a good way to level the playing field between the powerful and the drones. Only natural that the powerful will find a way to shut them down. This too makes me a sad panda
A theoretical thought experiment has me more worried: if politicians are allowed to expunge their records, and qualify as ordinary citizens with the right not to track; and if corporations are people too: is there a point in a hypothetical future where corporations will fall under the right not to track rule as well, and can expunge anything written about them online? Here are some bamboo leaves for you, Sad Panda.
Please let that never happen. I want to be optimistic and say that the people would never allow that but.... Yeah.... What a thoughtful gift. Omnom.