Library of Congress to archive Twitter

[vmanes]

LOC will store all public Twitter posts.

Why is my tax money being used to save, index, catalog, and make available all this "data" that is, when you boil it down, 99.999% drivel and crap?

Sure, right now the message content might only be in the low terabyte range, but it will only keep getting larger and larger.

Wait, I see a money making opportunity here. I'll apply for a government grant to study how often people publicly announce that they just took a dump. This could have great impact on how municipalities size their waste disposal systems.

[WaltP]

April Fools! I hope... :icon_rolleyes:

[vmanes]

April Fools! I hope... :icon_rolleyes:

Nope, this came out Apr 14 or so.

[WaltP]

Nope, this came out Apr 14 or so.

Close enough for government work.... :icon_wink:

[woooee]

Wait, I see a money making opportunity here. I'll apply for a government grant to study how often people publicly announce that they just took a dump

This could also affect water pressure levels so count me in as a co-conspirator, er co-researcher. In Los Angeles several major water pipes broke because lawn watering was limited to certain days. The pressure on those days was too much for the aging pipes to handle. Could the same thing happen with flushing? We should definitely get a grant and study this. And +1 for wasting dollars storing "tweets". There would have to be a new level of bureaucracy to collect and store them.

[Will Gresham]

I am not for this, in any way.

I do not reside in the US, and I am not a US national, I am English, I live, was born, was educated and work in the UK, so I do not believe that the US has any right to store my personal musings or opinions.

That being said, they do state that the will store public tweets, so if it comes to it I will make my account private.

[GrimJack]

You folks don't understand much about what historical researchers want. The individual tweets by the various twits are not much but the aggregate information will be of enormous value if for no other reason but to see how rumors move and mutate. All the different tags and now geo-tagging has been added. Historians really like being able to read local information from diaries, notes and such that are written about daily life rather than just about courts or legislatures.

This info is not for current research, this is for your great grandkids and research into "what were we thinking".

[vmanes]

This info is not for current research, this is for your great grandkids and research into "what were we thinking".

And they will say, "What were they thinking!?"

[jwenting]

And they will say, "What were they thinking!?"

hmm, will they even still understand the concept of "thinking"?

[vmanes]

hmm, will they even still understand the concept of "thinking"?

Looking at the majority of tweets, they will wonder if WE had the concept of thinking.

[jwenting]

Looking at the majority of tweets, they will wonder if WE had the concept of thinking.

Assuming the average Twitter user is representative of society...
Which apparently the LoC does think, which either doesn't bode well for society or the LoC (or both).

So, were in a precarious place with the recession. The economy is sluggish. State services are close to breaking, thousands have been made redundant. Who's bright idea was this? There will be so much information available in 20 years time, will there really be a need for this? 100 words snippits (or whatever it is) - capture the thought processes of the time. I tell lies, more lies and big whoppers on my twitter account. Who gives a damn?

[jwenting]

going to require a lot of jobs to "analyse" all that "data" for the archives of Big Brother.
There's all those jobs The One promised to create.