Most of us with Twitter accounts have tweeted things in the heat of the moment, or without thinking that we have then regretted and then had to delete for damage limitation! It’s just the sort of thing that goes hand in hand with having a social media account. Except, when politicians mess up and tweet stuff that they shouldn’t – it becomes a little bit more serious.

Well now they are going to have to be even more cautious because of the new, rather aptly named Politwoops project that has been introduced by the pro-transparency group, The Sunlight Foundation.

This site watches the accounts of U.S politicians like a hawk, scooping up and posting any judgment errors, gaffs, goofs and generally the stuff they really don’t want the general public to have seen that they posted. The site even tells you just how long the tweet was up there before it got taken down!! Fascinating stuff!!!

According to The Sunlight Foundation website, the first version of Politwoops was developed by the The Netherlands Open State Foundation – as a means of keeping an eye on their government officials.

The Sunlight Foundation claim that there are currently 12 other international versions of the site operating around the world, that are being run by other pro-transparency organizations like Sunlight. Something tells me though, that it won’t be long before they start popping up all over the place.

(Via Poliwoops)

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