All Your Tweets Are Belong to Library of Congress
All Your Tweets Are Belong to Library of Congress
Posted 04/15/2010 at 4:53am
| by Paul Lilly
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Yes, we actually made an "All Your Base" reference, and trust us, we feel terrible about it. But it was the first thought that came to mind when we caught wind that the Library of Congress had acquired every public tweet ever made. That's right, all your spelling errors -- intentional or otherwise -- and witty 140-character musings are now forever preserved in the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States.
"It is out pleasure to donate access to the entire archive of public tweets to the Library of Congress for preservation and research," Twitter announced on its blog. "It's very exciting that tweets are becoming part of history. It should be noted that there are some specifics regarding this arrangement. Only after a six-month delay can the tweets be used for internal library use for non-commercial research, public display by the library itself, and preservation."
This 'only' includes public twitter messages and not direct messages or the "tiny percentage of accounts that are protected." According to Twitter, 105 million registered users send out some 55 million tweets a day, "and that number is climbing sharply."
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Tekzel
April 15, 2010 at 8:29am
Who's dumb idea is this, anyway? 99.9% of them are utterly useless and unworthy of being seen, much less being saved.
---
You know users... Buncha bitchy little girls.
compro01
April 15, 2010 at 9:39am
Utterly useless now, but I suspect that future historians may find them an interesting insight into modern times.
Five Rabbits
April 15, 2010 at 10:06am
Think of the historical significance when they learn Ashton Kutcher had more twitter followers than Wolf Blitzer...
bathtbgin
April 15, 2010 at 8:04am
Please read the ENTIRE article before freaking out. They will only be archiving PUBLIC tweets, private tweets will still remain private. That being said I still find this pretty creepy.
Joji
April 15, 2010 at 6:54am
Sigh... first it was Facebook, now it's Twitter!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?
Twitter has problems... they probably don't understand what "privacy" means.
~Joji~
kof4897
April 15, 2010 at 9:30am
You're posting public comments and what not and you're nervous out privacy?
Beav
April 15, 2010 at 6:26am
not to use twitter. Why they want to catalog millions of inanities, I have no idea.
Cy-Kill
April 15, 2010 at 5:28am
They didn't get my permission to give my tweets away, nor did the LoC get my permission to use said tweets.
Cy-Kill
nedwards
April 15, 2010 at 9:12am
Well, they're not giving your tweets away; the LOC is just archiving a copy. And by using Twitter you actually did give them permission. You did read the Terms of Service, right?
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