To many people on the web and to almost everyone else in various industries, Twitter is where the real world happens in real-time, digitally.
Due to how things work on the social media platform, Twitter allows its tweets to be embedded on third-party websites. This allows the Twitter experience to reach far beyond its own website and apps.
Embedded tweets would appear in a card-like design, complete with the text and the media included. And when the tweet is deleted, Twitter would preserve the content in its unformatted text.
In an update, this is no longer the case.
Any website that has embedded a tweet that has been deleted, no matter how long ago that tweet is, will show a blank box with only a Twitter logo.
Twitter started rolling out this update since the end of March 2022.
For third-party websites to embed a tweet, Twitter provides a code that can be pasted on the third-party websites.
This code includes the tweet's plain text.
By providing the content of tweets at a code level, Twitter intentionally ensured that tweets could still be displayed even when tweets are eventually deleted.
Since Twitter has no control of third-party websites, meaning that it cannot remove the codes that have been embedded, Twitter is able to remove the content of deleted tweets on third-party websites by rolling out an update to JavaScript Twitter uses in the embed API.
So although the text is still there inside the HTML, nothing will show up on the third-party websites.
According to Twitter senior product manager Eleanor Harding, the change is "to better respect when people have chosen to delete their tweets."
The blank Twitter card impacts any tweets that have been removed for other reasons, like when the account that posted them has been suspended.
For the websites that have embedded a removed tweet for whatever reasons, the blank Twitter card will not ruin their web design, and won't show as if things are broken.
However, this creates what's called a "link rot."
Also referred to as the "reference rot," this happens when link on a website stops targeting its original location due to reasons, like being relocated or becoming permanently unavailable.
This in turn can ruin experience of the users of the website.
This is because Twitter's blank cards are literally littering web pages across the internet with holes.
This is also bad for journalism, since Twitter' change is like tampering with public records.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, for example, had his accounts removed. His tweets are all over the internet. With the change, Twitter essentially re moves public interest that should remain available.
It's rare to see a change this magnitude to be rolled out without prior warning.
But regardless, the monumental change is overshadowed by the news about Elon Musk purchasing a majority stake in Twitter.
Sooner than later, the backlash was rather intense.
Only a day after that, the company reverted the change, with Twitter confirming the move one day later.
"After considering the feedback we heard, we’re rolling back this change for now while we explore different options," a spokesperson for the company told The Verge. "We appreciate those who shared their points of view — your feedback helps us make Twitter better."