Twitter also censored Progress New York's services app

  

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).

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.”

Mayor de Blasio is utilizing a shady app to avoid keeping records of his communications

NY Daily News

Mayor de Blasio has joined the 21st century — and found a way to hide his communications.

Hizzoner joined encrypted messaging app Signal over the weekend. The tech lets users send disappearing messages to one another and protects the content with encryption.

So if the mayor wanted to discuss something controversial with an aide or campaign contributor, all he’d have to do is time his messages to disappear after a few minutes and the public would never know.

De Blasio’s use of the app poses legal and ethical problems, said Alex Camarda, a senior policy adviser for good government group Reinvent Albany.

“We don’t think that any elected official should be using an app that does not preserve communications that are subject to the Freedom of Information Law and the records archiving laws,” he said.

Under state law, “any information kept, held, filed, produced or reproduced by, with or for an agency ... in any physical form whatsoever” is subject to FOIL requests requiring agencies including the mayor’s office to turn over the info.

“We don’t see how it’s possible to use that kind of app and be in compliance with those laws,” Camarda said of Signal.

This is SOP for our secretive and above all laws mayor. I tend to think he's been pulling this craven stunt for years during his daily Park Slope Y workout routine.