The Twitter social media giant has censored the C’est Vrai app, an action that suspends the ability of the Web application from delivering programmable tweets over the Twitter service. The action by Twitter followed its demand to control the content of tweets delivered by the C’est Vrai app.
The C’est Vrai app is a multi-faceted, computer-assisted tool that provides research and information services to Progress New York. The dispute focused on recent content that the C’est Vrai app has been delivering, namely, the location of certain utility outages taking place at the apartment complexes of the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA. Twitter’s restriction prevents the C’est Vrai app from continuing to deliver such content, which was being served in the public interest.
Twitter had objected to the inclusion of the Twitter handles of public officials, in whose districts the apartment complexes were located, respectively. In response, Progress New York described that officials were only tagged for outages in their district and noted that several public officials had acknowledged the C’est Vrai tweets in some form without complaint, including, but not limited to, Borough President James Oddo (R-Staten Island) and New York City Councilmembers Steven Matteo (R-Staten Island), Carlos Menchaca (D-Brooklyn), and Helen Rosenthal (D-Manhattan).
This was not Twitter’s first action against the C’est Vrai app, and the number of censorship acts by Twitter are increasing, leading to the filing of Federal complaints, for example.
The restriction by Twitter began on 23 September, when the last programmable tweet was published by the C’est Vrai app. Despite arguments submitted by Progress New York in explanation for how the C’est Vrai app programs tweets, Twitter summarily objected to the use of public officials’ tags, writing, “We can only consider a request to reactivate your app after you agree to stop this behavior.” Because Progress New York interpreted Twitter’s response as extortious, Progress New York would not respond to a criminal threat that was intent on undermining Progress New York’s constitutional right to operate a free press. As a result, Progress New York replied, in relevant part, to Twitter, “Progress New York is a news organisation. Regrettably, this is not the first time we have faced extortion or attempts at extortion. We don’t respond to extortion or attempts at extortion.”
