6 ms·

Why the Library of Congress is wrong to archive Twitter

10 points by mgunes 14y ago

drx 14y ago
All of his arguments boil down to "open web good, twitter bad, ergo LoC shouldn't archive twitter".
- quesera 14y ago
  Disingenuous. He said "twitter private, Library of Congress public. Public preference to one of several private corps not in public interest, especially when there is a larger, more archive-worthy corpus that doesn't require private APIs or vendor discrimination". Which part of that do you disagree with?
  - entropy_ 14y ago
    GP is disparaging, but doesn't state any disagreement, his argument boils down to huff puff mumble mumble, get off my lawn.
  - Retric 14y ago
    I would assume they would want to do both. The advantage to using Twitter is it copy's a wider range of conversation AND it's easy. Set it up and add some server-space and be done with it, where to even start on blogs would require 10x the effort and even more space.
- entropy_ 14y ago
  With the slight correction that it's "ergo LoC should probably try to archive the web before it tries to archive twitter". But yeah, that's the gist of it. But so what? That doesn't mean it's an invalid argument. In fact, I'm inclined to agree with it.
  - davewiner 14y ago
    If they had a good process for archiving blogs on the open web, then I wouldn't have a problem with extending that to Twitter.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
VLM 14y ago
Core assumption is there is some business advantage in having LoC archive. Not sure I agree. Much more fun is to use an analogy. LoC will arbitrarily by their own high level decision only and exclusively archive ABC TV shows, NBC, CBS, etc, too bad. Or perhaps if they only archived Ford corporate materials and ignore GM and all others.
- davewiner 14y ago
  Well there certainly is a business advantage. Or why would Twitter have done it, and done a big rollout of the deal (I believe it was at SXSW). It was a huge publicity bonanza, the message was that Twitter is Historic. Don't believe us, believe the Library of Congress. They didn't do it out of altruism, they did it because it was excellent publicity. (Probably the LOC did it for that reason too.) And we have a say in this in the US, since we pay for the LOC.
  - wtvanhest 14y ago
    Well there certainly is a business advantage. Or why would Twitter have done it, and done a big rollout of the deal You cannot assume companies always act logically. In this case they could have agreed to it just because it was "cool". They didn't do it out of altruism, they did it because it was excellent publicity. This is probably accurate, but it doesn't give them a long term advantage. It probably gave them a small boost in marketing (I say small because I have never heard about this). Marketing doesn't hold up without investment. (for those of you who say iconic brands will hold up, keep in mind that every iconic brand advertises constantly.) Further, the government arbitrarily "subsidizes" businesses constantly. In many cases much more so than Twitter. I agree that any subsidy (whether monetary or otherwise) should be examined, but in this case it seems to be a complete nonissue to me.
    - davewiner 14y ago
      >>the government arbitrarily "subsidizes" businesses constantly And people object to it constantly.
  - 14y ago
esonderegger 14y ago
Who says the Library of Congress isn't archiving the open web? http://www.loc.gov/webarchiving/faq.html http://www.loc.gov/webarchiving/faq.html Specifically, it states: The types of sites archived include, but are not limited to: United States government (federal, state, district, local), foreign government, candidates for political office, political commentary, political parties, media, religious organizations, support groups, tributes and memorials, advocacy groups, educational and research institutions, creative expressions (cartoons, poetry, etc.), and blogs.
- davewiner 14y ago
  Did you miss the note? http://scripting.com/stories/2012/07/17/whyTheLocArchivingTwitterI.html http://scripting.com/stories/2012/07/17/whyTheLocArchivingTw... "(Note: I mean bloggers. The equivalent content that's on Twitter, but not in a corporate blogging silo.)"
  - scott_s 14y ago
    Did you miss the last word of his quote?
    - davewiner 14y ago
      No I didn't. But I also noted it was the last word. :-)
      - eli 14y ago
        LoC is one of the organizing members of this: http://www.netpreserve.org/about/index.php http://www.netpreserve.org/about/index.php The mission of the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) is to acquire, preserve and make accessible knowledge and information from the Internet for future generations everywhere, promoting global exchange and international relations. They've got a working group working on smart crawlers right now. If you've got some good ideas for making it easier to archive blogs, perhaps you should consider contributing.
      - 14y ago
danso 14y ago
I don't really get it. LoC also archives commercial content that was, at some point, closed off to non-payers. As for why Twitter and not your average blogger...well...because there's a specific endpoint to get all the tweets, each of which is a discrete, well-defined object. Finding all the blogs on the Internet is likely not as easy.
sp332 14y ago
LoC archives Twitter because only LoC can archive Twitter. Other projects, notably the Internet Archive, already archive open web sites including blogs. But IA doesn't have a hope of archiving Twitter. LoC arranged this because if they didn't, no one would have a Twitter archive.
- eli 14y ago
  I think LoC has partnered with the Internet Archive in the past, but now they're planning a much more ambitious version at http://www.netpreserve.org/about/index.php http://www.netpreserve.org/about/index.php LoC is actually relatively forward-thinking when it comes to digital archiving. For example, for a while now they've been encouraging people to digitize archives of their own personal data: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/ http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/
- guan 14y ago
  You could also argue that as a government agency the LoC should prioritize important archiving tasks that aren’t already being done by the private/non-profit sector. Despite being a corporate controlled medium, Twitter is still an important communication medium and should be archived. For whatever reason, others aren’t doing it, so it’s an obvious thing for LoC to do.
motoford 14y ago
I always thought this was just a publicity stunt orchestrated by Twitter.
coffeegeek 14y ago
And the NSA is archiving Twitter and everything else.
imgabe 14y ago
I think the advantage Twitter gets from being archived is greatly overestimated here. How many people actually consider that when they decide to sign up for Twitter? I'm also skeptical that Twitter is an alternative to a traditional blog. The 140 character limit doesn't really let you replace a blog if that's what you want to do. I think most people who want to blog would have a blog in addition to Twitter. Likewise, people on Twitter who don't have a blog, probably just wouldn't publish anything at all in the absence of Twitter, so it's a net gain in that respect. Finally, Twitter does have a corporate API, isn't most of it accessible through the open web any way? Any user's profile can be accessed through the website unless they've specifically restricted it. And generally, I don't see the point in NOT archiving something if you can. Sure it's fine to argue that other things should be archived first, but if someone is going to archive something, why stop them? We only gain by having a more complete and accurate historical record.
parfe 14y ago
Tweets can detail events of local, national and global importance which may only have value in hindsight. To risk losing a stream of tweets regarding a milestone event because you don't like Twitter's API policy seems quite small sighted. 99.9999% of what comes through twitter is wasted bits. I still see value in archiving it all to guarantee capturing a real time log of an historic election, the death of a notable person, the announcement of a major discovery, or the day to day thoughts during a protest or revolution. We have 19th century diaries detailing a rector's daily meals for his entire adult life while we have recovered nearly nothing regarding the poor living in slums in London, except through the distant scornful commentary of the gentry. The LoC shouldn't be endorsing Twitter as a company, but the users of Twitter have endorsed it by logging the course of human events.
davewiner 14y ago
I posted a follow-up to this piece. http://scripting.com/stories/2012/07/20/moreOnLocAndTwitter.html http://scripting.com/stories/2012/07/20/moreOnLocAndTwitter.... Dave

10 points by mgunes 14y ago

drx 14y ago

All of his arguments boil down to "open web good, twitter bad, ergo LoC shouldn't archive twitter".

quesera 14y ago
Disingenuous. He said "twitter private, Library of Congress public. Public preference to one of several private corps not in public interest, especially when there is a larger, more archive-worthy corpus that doesn't require private APIs or vendor discrimination". Which part of that do you disagree with?
- entropy_ 14y ago
  GP is disparaging, but doesn't state any disagreement, his argument boils down to huff puff mumble mumble, get off my lawn.
- Retric 14y ago
  I would assume they would want to do both. The advantage to using Twitter is it copy's a wider range of conversation AND it's easy. Set it up and add some server-space and be done with it, where to even start on blogs would require 10x the effort and even more space.
entropy_ 14y ago
With the slight correction that it's "ergo LoC should probably try to archive the web before it tries to archive twitter". But yeah, that's the gist of it. But so what? That doesn't mean it's an invalid argument. In fact, I'm inclined to agree with it.
- davewiner 14y ago
  If they had a good process for archiving blogs on the open web, then I wouldn't have a problem with extending that to Twitter.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

VLM 14y ago

Core assumption is there is some business advantage in having LoC archive. Not sure I agree. Much more fun is to use an analogy. LoC will arbitrarily by their own high level decision only and exclusively archive ABC TV shows, NBC, CBS, etc, too bad. Or perhaps if they only archived Ford corporate materials and ignore GM and all others.

davewiner 14y ago
Well there certainly is a business advantage. Or why would Twitter have done it, and done a big rollout of the deal (I believe it was at SXSW). It was a huge publicity bonanza, the message was that Twitter is Historic. Don't believe us, believe the Library of Congress. They didn't do it out of altruism, they did it because it was excellent publicity. (Probably the LOC did it for that reason too.) And we have a say in this in the US, since we pay for the LOC.
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  Well there certainly is a business advantage. Or why would Twitter have done it, and done a big rollout of the deal You cannot assume companies always act logically. In this case they could have agreed to it just because it was "cool". They didn't do it out of altruism, they did it because it was excellent publicity. This is probably accurate, but it doesn't give them a long term advantage. It probably gave them a small boost in marketing (I say small because I have never heard about this). Marketing doesn't hold up without investment. (for those of you who say iconic brands will hold up, keep in mind that every iconic brand advertises constantly.) Further, the government arbitrarily "subsidizes" businesses constantly. In many cases much more so than Twitter. I agree that any subsidy (whether monetary or otherwise) should be examined, but in this case it seems to be a complete nonissue to me.
  - davewiner 14y ago
    >>the government arbitrarily "subsidizes" businesses constantly And people object to it constantly.
- 14y ago

esonderegger 14y ago

Who says the Library of Congress isn't archiving the open web? http://www.loc.gov/webarchiving/faq.html http://www.loc.gov/webarchiving/faq.html Specifically, it states: The types of sites archived include, but are not limited to: United States government (federal, state, district, local), foreign government, candidates for political office, political commentary, political parties, media, religious organizations, support groups, tributes and memorials, advocacy groups, educational and research institutions, creative expressions (cartoons, poetry, etc.), and blogs.

davewiner 14y ago
Did you miss the note? http://scripting.com/stories/2012/07/17/whyTheLocArchivingTwitterI.html http://scripting.com/stories/2012/07/17/whyTheLocArchivingTw... "(Note: I mean bloggers. The equivalent content that's on Twitter, but not in a corporate blogging silo.)"
- scott_s 14y ago
  Did you miss the last word of his quote?
  - davewiner 14y ago
    No I didn't. But I also noted it was the last word. :-)
    - eli 14y ago
      LoC is one of the organizing members of this: http://www.netpreserve.org/about/index.php http://www.netpreserve.org/about/index.php The mission of the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) is to acquire, preserve and make accessible knowledge and information from the Internet for future generations everywhere, promoting global exchange and international relations. They've got a working group working on smart crawlers right now. If you've got some good ideas for making it easier to archive blogs, perhaps you should consider contributing.
    - 14y ago

danso 14y ago

I don't really get it. LoC also archives commercial content that was, at some point, closed off to non-payers. As for why Twitter and not your average blogger...well...because there's a specific endpoint to get all the tweets, each of which is a discrete, well-defined object. Finding all the blogs on the Internet is likely not as easy.

sp332 14y ago

LoC archives Twitter because only LoC can archive Twitter. Other projects, notably the Internet Archive, already archive open web sites including blogs. But IA doesn't have a hope of archiving Twitter. LoC arranged this because if they didn't, no one would have a Twitter archive.

eli 14y ago
I think LoC has partnered with the Internet Archive in the past, but now they're planning a much more ambitious version at http://www.netpreserve.org/about/index.php http://www.netpreserve.org/about/index.php LoC is actually relatively forward-thinking when it comes to digital archiving. For example, for a while now they've been encouraging people to digitize archives of their own personal data: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/ http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/
guan 14y ago
You could also argue that as a government agency the LoC should prioritize important archiving tasks that aren’t already being done by the private/non-profit sector. Despite being a corporate controlled medium, Twitter is still an important communication medium and should be archived. For whatever reason, others aren’t doing it, so it’s an obvious thing for LoC to do.

motoford 14y ago

I always thought this was just a publicity stunt orchestrated by Twitter.

coffeegeek 14y ago

And the NSA is archiving Twitter and everything else.

imgabe 14y ago

I think the advantage Twitter gets from being archived is greatly overestimated here. How many people actually consider that when they decide to sign up for Twitter? I'm also skeptical that Twitter is an alternative to a traditional blog. The 140 character limit doesn't really let you replace a blog if that's what you want to do. I think most people who want to blog would have a blog in addition to Twitter. Likewise, people on Twitter who don't have a blog, probably just wouldn't publish anything at all in the absence of Twitter, so it's a net gain in that respect. Finally, Twitter does have a corporate API, isn't most of it accessible through the open web any way? Any user's profile can be accessed through the website unless they've specifically restricted it. And generally, I don't see the point in NOT archiving something if you can. Sure it's fine to argue that other things should be archived first, but if someone is going to archive something, why stop them? We only gain by having a more complete and accurate historical record.

parfe 14y ago

Tweets can detail events of local, national and global importance which may only have value in hindsight. To risk losing a stream of tweets regarding a milestone event because you don't like Twitter's API policy seems quite small sighted. 99.9999% of what comes through twitter is wasted bits. I still see value in archiving it all to guarantee capturing a real time log of an historic election, the death of a notable person, the announcement of a major discovery, or the day to day thoughts during a protest or revolution. We have 19th century diaries detailing a rector's daily meals for his entire adult life while we have recovered nearly nothing regarding the poor living in slums in London, except through the distant scornful commentary of the gentry. The LoC shouldn't be endorsing Twitter as a company, but the users of Twitter have endorsed it by logging the course of human events.

davewiner 14y ago

I posted a follow-up to this piece. http://scripting.com/stories/2012/07/20/moreOnLocAndTwitter.html http://scripting.com/stories/2012/07/20/moreOnLocAndTwitter.... Dave