The Associated Press has deleted and corrected nine tweets during the month of October alone. Each time the AP deletes a tweet, the outlet follows up with an explanation of why the aforementioned tweet was taken down.
Often times they will include in the follow up a note saying they will be sending out another tweet to correct the original one.
Most recently, they deleted a tweet about Cesar Sayoc Jr., the man who was arrested for allegedly mailing pipe bombs to prominent Democratic leaders.
The AP has deleted a tweet about the investigation that led to the arrest of the man accused of mailing explosive devices to prominent Democrats. A correct tweet will follow.
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 29, 2018
Twenty minutes after tweeting that they deleted a tweet, the AP tweeted a link to their story with the blurb, “Correction: Prosecutors say the man suspected in the pipe bomb mailings unwittingly left behind a wealth of clues that led to his arrest in four days.”
Excluding the tweet above, four of their deleted tweets were removed because they contained incorrect information. Two inaccurately said the mail bomb sent to Hillary Clinton was discovered at her home, another was deleted because it wrongly called the Mega Millions lottery the largest lottery in the country’s history and lastly, they removed a tweet that contained an incorrect dollar amount about a court ruling on Monsanto’s weed killer.
Two other AP tweets were deleted because one had a dead link and another has “garble” at the end of it. Two more were removed because they lacked context.
AP has deleted its last tweet which had garble at the end. a new one is coming shortly.
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 11, 2018
The AP’s Vice President for Standards John Daniszewski published a statement back in 2016 on the outlet’s revised policy on deleting tweets.
It says, “Under the revisions now in effect, whenever AP deletes content from Twitter, AP will send out a separate tweet giving the reason for the removal, which provides clarity to the public. In most cases, AP will then transmit a replacement tweet.”
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