Get past the cheesy name — honestly, this Twitterizing of words needs to stop — and you'll find that Tweleted is an occasionally useful service. Set against clouds on a bright blue background, Tweleted promises to recover any Twitter posts you may have accidentally deleted. A nice feature, but one hardly worth, well, Twittering about.
But across the top of the page, there's an option to switch the site to evil mode. Click on it, and the blue skies disappear, replaced with the fires of hell and an ominous message: "Recover embarrassing deleted tweets for fun and profit." Because Tweleted uses publicly available records, the website can recover not only your deleted tweets but also everyone else's. And since Twitter users aren't exactly known for filtering their thoughts, the few things they think twice about should be interesting.
The website has already gotten a few people into trouble. Just last week, sports blog Deadspin used the site to tattle on Texas Rangers reliever C.J. Wilson, who used his Twitter profile to make fun of broadcaster Chris Berman's attempts to hit on women at ESPN's ESPY Awards. Wilson thought twice about his comments later, but Tweleted preserved them. A quick glance over the deleted tweets of Twitter's top users reveals that most have been on their best behavior, though John Mayer apparently thought this little gem — "Wearing corduroy pants means having a nail file on you all the time" — was too inane even by Twitter's standards.
Tweleted raises some larger privacy concerns. When users delete a post on Twitter, it disappears from their user profile but not from Twitter's search-engine results. Tweleted uses this loophole to dig up deleted posts. Some Twitter users are crying foul, arguing that when they delete something, it should be gone for good. The company says it's working to make this happen, although setting your Twitter profile to private fixes the issue. For now, it's worth remembering the old adage: If you don't want someone to read it, it's better not to write it — or tweet it — in the first place.