Progress New York
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).
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.”