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Archive of 43k+ Donald Trump Twitter Screenshots

94 points by soheilpro 6y ago

jonny_eh 6y ago
It's unfortunate that all those permalinks to his old tweets are dead. A lot of other tweets, blog posts, and news articles are now broken.
- chrononaut 6y ago
  It doesn't universally solve the problem, but a given platform or website might be able to make changes to rewrite links to include the archive.org prefix to make them functional again. Still requires work, but perhaps a tiny step in making them somewhat accessible again.
- croon 6y ago
  You could probably fix that with a small userscript, if so inclined.
- zinekeller 6y ago
  This (and going private in Twitter) is the reason BBC uses screenshots instead of direct embeds (the link is still on the text and/or caption).
  - xref 6y ago
    Wished a lot more outlets did this because Twitter embeds rarely load for me on mobile. For ex in Apple News or Safari any Twitter embeds are just a spinning loading wheel of death
  - jonny_eh 6y ago
    The problem there is that it's easy to fake a tweet via an image. Not a big problem for the BBC since they're fairly trustworthy.
Karupan 6y ago
Searchable text archive with CSV/JSON export here - https://www.thetrumparchive.com https://www.thetrumparchive.com No affiliation to that site, just found it useful.
- pvorb 6y ago
  I only wish that the site had permalinks (not to Twitter, but to the archived links themselves).
  - Karupan 6y ago
    It’s on GitHub[1] so I’m sure the author will welcome an issue or even better a PR. [1] https://github.com/bpb27/tta-elastic https://github.com/bpb27/tta-elastic
eminence32 6y ago
> Today, we are releasing the resulting files to the public. This archive contains screenshots of 43,475 Donald Trump tweets from May 2009 to May 2020. Does anyone have any insight as to why the tweets are archived as screenshots, as opposed to text? > (Direct download, 2.6 GB) Assuming each tweet plus its associated metadata is roughly ~500 bytes, then the 43k tweets in text form would be approximately 22 megabytes. The images are 2.6 gigabytes.
- grenoire 6y ago
  Screenshots are for some reason to be better proof than just text? I think it's a layman's fallacy.
  - midasuni 6y ago
    Literally right click, inspect, edit
    - kennywinker 6y ago
      ...and then screenshot the editied tweet? Op’s point is (i think) that there is no more verifiability to a screenshot than to the text itself. Not from the perspective of verifiability, but from the perspective of showing them as they were seen in the moment (fonts, profile icons, layout) screenshots do seem a touch more historically accurate
- kbar13 6y ago
  looks like pikaso is a tool used for screenshotting tweets for usage on sites / other marketing. and this is a demo / marketing for their tool
- pvorb 6y ago
  Pikaso is a tool for taking screenshots of tweets and this was probably done as a showcase of the tool.
  - matt-attack 6y ago
transitivebs 6y ago
Someone was just waiting for this day to come. Archive all that BS for analytical purposes and let's hopefully all move on.
- ffs_123321 6y ago
  Analytical purposes AKA evidence in forthcoming legal proceedings.
preommr 6y ago
It turns out things online don't exist forever. There are lots of things that are deleted and are impossible to find afterwards because somebody has to archive it and at some point that "somebody" stops caring. So when things like the service they used to host the content clear up old content, things don't get reuploaded. I really hope that these tweets are not only stored, but stored in a way that makes it difficult to prevent manipulation. I think many of Trump's tweets (and his family) are historic. Hopefully they're archived in a way that they last decades/centuries.
NDizzle 6y ago
Front and center should be the one where he says they are coming for you, he’s just in the way.
bra-ket 6y ago
why not archive tweets of all his supporters they need to be doxxed, arrested and persecuted as enemies of the people. /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_people#Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_people#Soviet_Uni...
- nnspired 6y ago
  How very reconciliatory of you.
- ConcreteGidget 6y ago
  Theres a lot I don't know about the Soviet Union but the "Enemies of the People" were the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party, not supporters of the party. I agree that people like Giuliani and even people like Ted Cruz who indirectly bolstered the attack on the capitol building should be prosecuted but going after Trump Supporters themselves is dumb and these comments shouldn't even be made in jest as they are quite dangerous. Most of them are victims of predatory media companies. You sound like the gestapo.
  - bra-ket 6y ago
    hmm, have you heard of Gulag and millions of 'enemies of the people' that perished there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag also you didn't notice "/s", I'm a proud Trump voter, one of the 74M.
AlexisEvelyn 6y ago
I personally have been archiving Trump's tweets in a SQL like database. https://www.dolthub.com/repositories/alexis-evelyn/presidential-tweets https://www.dolthub.com/repositories/alexis-evelyn/president...
- whycombagator 6y ago
  > This page is not currently supported on mobile browsers > Please visit this page on a desktop computer. That’s unfortunate...
  - AlexisEvelyn 6y ago
    Yep. It's a work in progress. Currently Dolthub's team is focused on improving the speed and efficiency of the software. Mobile support for the website is on the roadmap.
crispyambulance 6y ago
Seems like a waste of disk space to archive all those tweets from the Stable Genius. I guess that will have to do as his "presidential library"?
icefrakker 6y ago
Assuming things like this survive I wonder how they are going to perceive us 2000 years from now versus how we see Nero or Caligula's Rome.
matt-attack 6y ago
Why would anyone archive a Twitter feed as images? Like really? The whole thing should just be in a text file.

94 points by soheilpro 6y ago

It's unfortunate that all those permalinks to his old tweets are dead. A lot of other tweets, blog posts, and news articles are now broken.

chrononaut 6y ago
It doesn't universally solve the problem, but a given platform or website might be able to make changes to rewrite links to include the archive.org prefix to make them functional again. Still requires work, but perhaps a tiny step in making them somewhat accessible again.
croon 6y ago
You could probably fix that with a small userscript, if so inclined.
zinekeller 6y ago
This (and going private in Twitter) is the reason BBC uses screenshots instead of direct embeds (the link is still on the text and/or caption).
- xref 6y ago
  Wished a lot more outlets did this because Twitter embeds rarely load for me on mobile. For ex in Apple News or Safari any Twitter embeds are just a spinning loading wheel of death
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  The problem there is that it's easy to fake a tweet via an image. Not a big problem for the BBC since they're fairly trustworthy.

Karupan 6y ago

Searchable text archive with CSV/JSON export here - https://www.thetrumparchive.com https://www.thetrumparchive.com No affiliation to that site, just found it useful.

pvorb 6y ago
I only wish that the site had permalinks (not to Twitter, but to the archived links themselves).
- Karupan 6y ago
  It’s on GitHub[1] so I’m sure the author will welcome an issue or even better a PR. [1] https://github.com/bpb27/tta-elastic https://github.com/bpb27/tta-elastic

eminence32 6y ago

> Today, we are releasing the resulting files to the public. This archive contains screenshots of 43,475 Donald Trump tweets from May 2009 to May 2020. Does anyone have any insight as to why the tweets are archived as screenshots, as opposed to text? > (Direct download, 2.6 GB) Assuming each tweet plus its associated metadata is roughly ~500 bytes, then the 43k tweets in text form would be approximately 22 megabytes. The images are 2.6 gigabytes.

grenoire 6y ago
Screenshots are for some reason to be better proof than just text? I think it's a layman's fallacy.
- midasuni 6y ago
  Literally right click, inspect, edit
  - kennywinker 6y ago
    ...and then screenshot the editied tweet? Op’s point is (i think) that there is no more verifiability to a screenshot than to the text itself. Not from the perspective of verifiability, but from the perspective of showing them as they were seen in the moment (fonts, profile icons, layout) screenshots do seem a touch more historically accurate
kbar13 6y ago
looks like pikaso is a tool used for screenshotting tweets for usage on sites / other marketing. and this is a demo / marketing for their tool
pvorb 6y ago
Pikaso is a tool for taking screenshots of tweets and this was probably done as a showcase of the tool.
- matt-attack 6y ago

transitivebs 6y ago

Someone was just waiting for this day to come. Archive all that BS for analytical purposes and let's hopefully all move on.

ffs_123321 6y ago
Analytical purposes AKA evidence in forthcoming legal proceedings.

preommr 6y ago

It turns out things online don't exist forever. There are lots of things that are deleted and are impossible to find afterwards because somebody has to archive it and at some point that "somebody" stops caring. So when things like the service they used to host the content clear up old content, things don't get reuploaded. I really hope that these tweets are not only stored, but stored in a way that makes it difficult to prevent manipulation. I think many of Trump's tweets (and his family) are historic. Hopefully they're archived in a way that they last decades/centuries.

NDizzle 6y ago

Front and center should be the one where he says they are coming for you, he’s just in the way.

bra-ket 6y ago

why not archive tweets of all his supporters they need to be doxxed, arrested and persecuted as enemies of the people. /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_people#Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_people#Soviet_Uni...

nnspired 6y ago
How very reconciliatory of you.
ConcreteGidget 6y ago
Theres a lot I don't know about the Soviet Union but the "Enemies of the People" were the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party, not supporters of the party. I agree that people like Giuliani and even people like Ted Cruz who indirectly bolstered the attack on the capitol building should be prosecuted but going after Trump Supporters themselves is dumb and these comments shouldn't even be made in jest as they are quite dangerous. Most of them are victims of predatory media companies. You sound like the gestapo.
- bra-ket 6y ago
  hmm, have you heard of Gulag and millions of 'enemies of the people' that perished there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag also you didn't notice "/s", I'm a proud Trump voter, one of the 74M.

AlexisEvelyn 6y ago

I personally have been archiving Trump's tweets in a SQL like database. https://www.dolthub.com/repositories/alexis-evelyn/presidential-tweets https://www.dolthub.com/repositories/alexis-evelyn/president...

whycombagator 6y ago
> This page is not currently supported on mobile browsers > Please visit this page on a desktop computer. That’s unfortunate...
- AlexisEvelyn 6y ago
  Yep. It's a work in progress. Currently Dolthub's team is focused on improving the speed and efficiency of the software. Mobile support for the website is on the roadmap.

crispyambulance 6y ago

Seems like a waste of disk space to archive all those tweets from the Stable Genius. I guess that will have to do as his "presidential library"?

icefrakker 6y ago

Assuming things like this survive I wonder how they are going to perceive us 2000 years from now versus how we see Nero or Caligula's Rome.

matt-attack 6y ago

Why would anyone archive a Twitter feed as images? Like really? The whole thing should just be in a text file.