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Library of Congress Will Save Tweets Printable Version of Article
New York Times
April 14, 2010
Library of Congress Will Save Tweets
By STEVE LOHR
Not everyone would think that the actor Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter musings on his daily doings constitute part of “the universal body of human knowledge.”
But the Library of Congress, the 210-year-old guardian of knowledge and cultural history, thinks so.
The library will archive the collected works of Twitter, the blogging service, whose users currently send a daily flood of 55 million messages, all that contain 140 or fewer characters.
Library officials explained the agreement as another step in the library’s embrace of digital media. Twitter, the Silicon Valley start-up, declared it “very exciting that tweets are becoming part of history.”
Academic researchers seem pleased as well. For hundreds of years, they say, the historical record has tended to be somewhat elitist because of its selectivity. In books, magazines and newspapers, they say, it is the prominent and the infamous who are written about most frequently.
But although celebrities like Mr. Kutcher may have the most followers on Twitter, they make up a tiny portion of its millions of users.
“This is an entirely new addition to the historical record, the second-by-second history of ordinary people,” said Fred R. Shapiro, associate librarian and lecturer at the Yale Law School.
The library reached out to the company a few months ago about adding Twitter’s content to the national archives, said Matt Raymond, the library’s director of communications. He cited Twitter’s “immense impact on culture and history,” like its use as a vital communications tool by political dissidents in Iran and Barack Obama’s turning to Twitter to declare victory in the 2008 election.
The Twitter archive will join the ambitious “Web capture” project at the library, begun a decade ago. That effort has assembled Web pages, online news articles and documents, typically concerning significant events like presidential elections and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mr. Raymond said.
The Web capture project already has stored 167 terabytes of digital material, far more than the equivalent of the text of the 21 million books in the library’s collection.
Some online commentators raised the question of whether the library’s Twitter archive could threaten the privacy of users. Mr. Raymond said that the archive would be available only for scholarly and research purposes. Besides, he added, the vast majority of Twitter messages that would be archived are publicly published on the Web.
“It’s not as if we’re after anything that’s not out there already,” Mr. Raymond said. “People who sign up for Twitter agree to the terms of service.”
Knowing that the Library of Congress will be preserving Twitter messages for posterity could subtly alter the habits of some users, said Paul Saffo, a visiting scholar at Stanford who specializes in technology’s effect on society.
“After all,” Mr. Saffo said, “your indiscretions will be able to be seen by generations and generations of graduate students.”
People thinking before they post on Twitter: now that would be historic indeed.
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Tyler Caldwell - 6th period
ReplyDeleteWOW! Who would have thought that Twitter is historic like that. But I do think the Twitter archive reduces users privacy. Whether it is text, email, messaging, or calling, that stuff is a persons business. If someone looks through my text messages, even if I don't have anything there that I don't want others to see, I get nervous because that is my personal stuff. I'm sure that is how the Twitter users feel about their private life being put into a central archive. But if it is part of the terms of service, then I guess that it is the persons fault for choosing to put something they aren't comfortable with the rest of the world seeing.
Tatiana R 4th
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, at first I thought "oh boy, now Ms. Scales is into Twittering too!" But then I saw that people were actually studying the comments for a reason. So now it's not just a stalking website because it is given a better name. Now it helps people study at high class universities such as Fred from Yale Law School.
Alexadria W.
ReplyDeletePeriod 6
The Web capture project already has stored 167 terabytes of digital material, far more than the equivalent of the text of the 21 million books in the library’s collection.
Thats just crazy. I dont even know in Elkin's library has that many books but it seems as it is no problem to docuument this much data. I'm not a big twitter person and have never actually visted the website, but i am sure this is one change soon to be followed by many more. Being a facebook user it seems websites like that would be more useful to save but who knows what website is next. This will also provide information for generations to come. Wheter it is good or bad depends on the people postind. Now people may give more thought to what they post.
Jackie Miller 6
ReplyDeleteI think it is very fascinating that Congress would be interested in Twitter.I do not think that the Twitter-ers would care about having an archive of their tweets, because most of the users will not have access anyways. Perhaps the talk of what will be tweeted will be altered, due to the knowledge of the government keeping record of them. Twitter users that would tweet about more provocative subjects may change their minds in the case that the government may read them. Although the not directly stated in the article perhaps the government could use this archive of tweets to protect the citizens, in the case that their may be talk of violent doings in the future.
Neha Joy
ReplyDeletePeriod 4
I think this an interesting piece of information. I believe that this might help future scientists or the future generations to understand the past. This would give them a lot of information about the lives of ordinary people. Also most of the people will think before they actually write a message or try following someone. Moreover I don’t think anybody can argue about the invasion of their privacy because they agreed to it when they signed for Tweeter.
Grace Amaku- 4th Period
ReplyDeleteCool. Do they want my 7th grade math notebook doodles, too?I dont think this is appropriate according to the constitution. They are using a blanket agreement without regard for the rights of the individuals. It just doesnt seem right that a government department would copy all information without judicial review. Of course people normally contribute to the library through copyright registration which is the method of volunteering the information. It just doesnt seem right to have this all encompassing blanket recording. You kids might regret being free this way with your life, when you get older and the powers that be start looking.
To look on the bright side: Yes, there are people who put thought into what they write on Twitter.And yes, it is worth preserving.I agree that more money should be spent on digitizing what is on microfilm (and paper) but with so many terrabytes of data already in the library's collection I doubt archiving Twitter will be a major expense. is very new & it already has had an impact in many areas. And who knows what information it will provide to scholars (and people who are curious) in the future.
Sruthi Jayadevan
ReplyDeleteperiod 6th
The idea of archiving twitter messages is interesting though I don't agree that it necessarily challenges the elitism of history. It just adds another source. How we read it and what we challenge will partly depend on our own study of history.
I'm a big fan of Twitter, but I'm not sure how useful this archive will be. Unless Twitter goes under (possible), all of the tweets are already saved. I can go to anyone's profile, and click through all of their public tweets since the day they joined. I could see the value in saving some (especially ones related to politics in Iran, etc), but only if they're verified in some way--these could then be used in research papers, etc.Not everything written is a masterpiece. Obviously, since the majority of people aren't visionaries or the like.
However, I don't think this is appropriate according to the constitution. They are using a blanket agreement without regard for the rights of the individuals. It just doesn't seem right that a government department would copy all information without judicial review. Of course people normally contribute to the library through copyright registration which is the method of volunteering the information. It just doesn't seem right to have this all encompassing blanket recording.
With the introduction of this new project, people might finally think before they post things on the internet. In the near decade, social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace has all contributed to the rise of more public information for individuals. When once the internet was a place where anonymous shadows lurked, it is now becoming less and less secure and private. However, that may not be too bad of a thing. Users of internet are now more considerate of their words to prevent being "called out" and "bashed upon".
ReplyDeleteAs the article stated,"indiscretions will be able to be seen by generations and generations of graduate students". The majority of people do not want to leave their mark in history as a person to be jeered at. The archiving of Twitter feeds will further allow the freedom of speech. Instead the use of books, newspapers, or any other media to record history, the words of average citizens will be without bias. Through archiving, the general beliefs of a certain time period in society will be forever recorded. Perhaps as time passes by, new mediums of media will replace Twitter: recording an advancement in technology and its "effect on society".
In conclusion, the project is very beneficial to recording history. Once idle gossip and meaningless messages have finally been given importance.
Eriel Yeldell 6th-I have an unbiased idea about this, I get what they are trying to do but personally I think that there are other more important things that can be documented in the Library of Congress-the library of all libraries.In the end, I hope idea goes better than I think it would because then it would be just a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteAnders Beato 6th
ReplyDeleteGreat the government want all my notes and pictures i draw in class. This is ridiculous that the government would do this. It seems like they are hiding behind this Judicial review if you ask me. There are plenty more things they could be documenting in the library of Congress then this I mean come on our government really impresses me some times just when i think they can't do anything thing stupider they do this. Also the internet these days is not private anymore back in the day people could post anything anonymously now there is always a back door to see who posted what.
Jeralyn Laran
ReplyDelete4th Period
It may be good and bad, depending on how you look at it. It may be good because there may be some things on Twitter that may want to be remembered for historical reasons. It could teach others in the way they could use it. It would be bad because they are altering the user's privacy. They agreed to the terms of the service, but i don't think it would go to that extent. Some may want their tweets saved, but others might not. Some people actually think before they write it in, but some may be trying to let their feelings out. It depends on your outlook on the subject.
Delma Mathew
ReplyDelete6th period
It is true that it is not always safe to post things on twitter. When someone posts pictures on the internet, it cannot be deleted. "Some online commentators raised the question of whether the library’s Twitter archive could threaten the privacy of users. Mr. Raymond said that the archive would be available only for scholarly and research purposes,"(Lohr). This sentence shows that we can post things for educational use.
Milan Doshi-5th Period
ReplyDeleteThe project that the Library of Congress started a decade ago called “Web Capture” is a great idea. The reason being that so much work is saved from authors and artists and poets that the words of the “regular” people are starting to be forgotten, By saving all of the tweets that are being made, the word of society will remain in history and with this the ideas and important events of the era. With the technology that we have, so much can be done to preserve the ideas, thoughts, and methods of this generation because this was a generation to not look down upon but look at in awe with the significant number of accomplishments we’ve had. What I think is that how would they be able to save only the United States of America’s tweets or are they going to be saving all of the world’s tweets. The second issue that I have with the idea is that so much space is already being taken up with such little time, how will they be able to manage to make incredible amounts of space for the years to come.
A thought that has been haunting me is why Twitter? Why did the government and the board choose twitter and not other social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace? It may be the fact that twitter is short and sweet but a lot of the other social networking sites have something very similar to tweets. We will never know this mystery but I bet society is ready for our world to be put down in history For the people who use twitter, oppose the idea, and think it violates their privacy should think this through again. The idea itself does not steal anybody’s identity because these tweets are published on the web for anybody to see and second the people who use twitter should be happy because they are finally being able to take a part in history, and have their voice heard a voice that will be heard by generations after ours.
Paula Salmon-6th period
ReplyDeleteI think that this is almost pointless. Half of the stuff that is on Twitter is not that important. I do understand that it can help show what someone was thinking or feeling during a specific event in their lives and when that event happened. Maybe it could help some how, but I rather doubt it. I think that the Library of Congress could be finding better stuff to put in there than pointless tweets about some random person’s life. I also think that it is crazy that people are just now thinking about their privacy when they tweet on Twitter. As the article states, “the vast majority of Twitter messages […] are publicly published on the Web”. So whatever people post on their twitter page can be seen by everyone around the world. People should really start to think about what they are posting on the web and how it might affect them.
Eric Li-6th
ReplyDeleteI personally never like twitter. I thought it didn't make much sense. But the government thinks it is. For the library of congress to embrace twitter has told us that its ready to take on the digital age. Although it feels weird to me why the library of congress would be taking twitter messages it certainly has a point at that it reflects today's culture and will have history students studying "us" later on"
Adam Pye
ReplyDelete5th Period
Wow that's all I can say.I have no idea how the library of Congress thought that documenting twitter post will be beneficial to history at all. Imagine sitting down in your U.S. history class and your teacher going, "Yes April 5, 2010 was a very important day because Tommy went to the dentist." I mean come on. I could understand if they only took tweets that have meaning, but this is insane. I really hope there is some bigger picture to this, but it's a supreme waste of time for the Library of Congress.
Josilyn Thomas
ReplyDelete6th-period
I think it’s funny yet interesting that the congress is actually fascinated in twitter. I think people won’t speak their own mind, but instead be careful of what they say because the government could record down what they say. Also if they strongly disagree in something, they would most likely keep their opinion to themselves due to the circumstances of the government reading their comments.
Rachel Choate, 6th Period
ReplyDeleteSomething like that will really make you think more than twice before posting something on twitter! What if you put extra embarassing information on there... anybody could know! I think it's a good but bad idea. Maybe future generations get to see the way we live everyday life, but its also a LOT of seemingly useless information. I don't really see the point of this, but thanks so much for the heads up! It could also help solve a super big mystery- you never know, it might just be the missing link to finding a criminal! lol, unlikely, but it's interesting to imagine:)
Joel Jacob - 6th Period
ReplyDeleteThe idea to capture the thoughts and ideas presented in twitter is magnificent. Not only is it preserving what people say and feel but it captures different views on a situations and how the society reacts to different situations. Saving all the tweets will help us understand how the English langue is changing over time and how people change over time with it. It will help people understand differences in cultures, religions, and beliefs. We are saving a moment in history to we can later look upon the past.
There is only one problem with that, if all that a person says is saved in one place then everyone can see what one-person says about their boss or teacher. This causes disarray and biasness among people; for example, when people are competing for a job and the employer see how a person tweets then he will be biased and will choose accordingly. Even though it says in the fine print, that no one reads, that this is allowed; however, they should not do this without the consent of each person. But at least you can say that you are a part of history if nothing else.
Jibin kuzhippil 6th
ReplyDeleteIm glad that the government is thinking about documenting things from the web but of all things, twitter? to me twitter is one of the most pointless websites out there and the congress is saving this stuff for the future generations to see and learn about history. personally i dont want my kids or grand kids to come to me and think that twitter was what i used to do when i was a kid
Kaylon Carroll.
ReplyDeletethis is truly amazing that congress actually looks at this stuff. when u make an account on websites like this you dont really think that congress will look at this stuff. i thinks its good just in case something happens in court and needs evidence, the documentation is good.
Stephen Harris 5th Period
ReplyDeleteCongress is wasting its time on twitter. The only information it will be able to archive is when some teens are meeting at the mall or where that Italian restaurant is. Congress shouldn't expect anything informative on twitter besides who is most talked about. Congress has a right to be going through peoples mainly because it’s public but shouldn’t be able to have the right to put people in jail unless they can physically show proof and not just a tweet.
Jonathan Cheung 4th
ReplyDeleteThrough this action, it ultimately shows the advancement in technology even by the Library of Congress, which contains books dating back to the Revolutionary War era. Yet I think this is really unnecessary, as there are more things to deal with by the government right now, like the oil spill and the debt. Right now, it does not seem like the tweets take up a lot of space, as it is only at 167 TB. As this situation arises with Twitter, other social networking sites might arise asking for similar services. This also provides a sense of caution to Twitter users as whatever they post online will be permanently kept. I think the true purpose behind this is to keep track of grammar and vocabulary of this time period as the English language is ever changing.
Jonathan Cheung
ReplyDelete4th period
Through this action, it ultimately shows the advancement in technology even by the Library of Congress, which contains books dating back to the Revolutionary War era. Yet I think this is really unnecessary, as there are more things to deal with by the government right now, like the oil spill and the debt. Right now, it does not seem like the tweets take up a lot of space, as it is only at 167 TB. As this situation arises with Twitter, other social networking sites might arise asking for similar services. This also provides a sense of caution to Twitter users as whatever they post online will be permanently kept. I think the true purpose behind this is to keep track of grammar and vocabulary of this time period as the English language is ever changing.
Chris Pena
ReplyDelete4th period
I thought this was very funny and interesting, its funny because there are actualy people who are going to be watching every single tweet, and liitle do they know they are'nt going to get much "history" from any of the millions of the tweets sent out a day, and most of the tweets sent out are sent out by teenagers, I don't believe teenagers will make history by sending out tweets, but i do think it interesting because it is capturing some ideas and quotes from famous people that can become big time quotes or something, and I do also believe this is some what evading privacy to every one that uses twitter. But all in all, if we get history from this, then thats great, if not, o well im sure there will something new soon that they can try again to get history from.
Andrew Tran 5th
ReplyDeleteI believe that this new operation has its good and bad parts. The fact that the government is storing and keeping track of all the tweeter-er's tweets might finally make people start thinking about what they post on the web. That's probably the only good part that I can see. The bad part is all the technology they're wasting on this. Who cares if someone hurt their foot or got rejected by someone or got arrested? The reason we're not interested in ordinary peoples' lives are because they are just that, ordinary. The reason so many people follow someone like Ashton Kutcher on Twitter is because he's extremely famous. No one care about the ordinary people and that is a fact that will remain the same no matter how much the web tries to change it.
I personally dont use Twitter, but some of my friends do. I wonder what kind of posts they have because if it is something inappropriate or something they dont want everyone to know then that will soon be published to everyone. I really dont think it makes sense to publish the peoples' business. If this does make history I will not be surprised at all, because our generation is going through technology advances that have never been seen before. It will be interseting to see what the future has in show for us.
ReplyDeleteIram N. period 4
ReplyDeleteThough I dont have a Twitter, I have heard mny of my friends discussing about it, it definetly is popular! But I definetly would not want to have everything I post on there to be kept in Library of Congress archives,that would really invade my privacy. Plus how many are they gonna save?!? There are SO many peopl that tweet. Still it is a good idea, who knows maybe one day they will find something that could help solve crimes,or reasons for suicide or something.
Jonathan P.
ReplyDelete6th period
I think that this project is a good representation on how this generation is really getting dependent on technology. But personally I think that saving tweets will not be beneficial in the long run because unless one of the tweets saved is a cure for cancer then it is totally pointless. There are more important things that the Library of Congress should save.
Josh McKay 5th period
ReplyDeleteI find it somewhat strange that the library is putting things like tweets into their archives. I mean what is the point? So people in the future think that we were idiots because we "tlk & txt 2 ppl." They are going to think that we were primitive and couldn't speak proper english! They are also going to look at these tweets and think, "why should we care if this person had to sneeze three times while on a date?" The majority of things on twitter, facebook, myspace, etc. are pointless things that are on peoples mind and they post. Now I'm not saying that I don't post random things that no one cares about, but it is rediculous that these are to be archived for future reference.
Meghan Patterson 5th
ReplyDeleteI think it's cool how they are using Twitter to mark historical things. Also how we can follow what celebrities are doing and saying online. It's kinda weird though how people check every single tweet they get but if they don't have anything else to do with there time then good for them. I don't really think this will be helpful in anyway to us but it is interesting.
Trevor Mitchell
ReplyDeletePeriod 5
Certainly they could be using huge amounts of data storage in the Library of Congress to record something more important than the mutterings of millions of people who have nothing to say? And 140 characters? I couldn't fit any of my posts on this website into that frame, and I try to present my arguments concisely and directly. 140 characters does not allow for any meaningful information to be conveyed, and therefore there's no real reason to permanently store these posts.
Alain Lee
ReplyDelete6th Period
I do not agree with Twitter archives and saving all the messages that are posted by users. If the release of these messages is in the Terms of Service for Twitter than that would mean everyone will not have a case against this. I would have to guess that most people do not read before they agree unless it is an important contract to be signed. I do like the idea of using the archives for education and research purposes to protect the privacy of the people.
Preston Graham 6th
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jonathan P.because who needs to study about what Ashton Kutcher or anybody is doing.
Elizabeth Smith- 4 period
ReplyDeletei kind of saw this coming. in our society today much of our culture involves social netwroking sites such as twitter. congress getting involved with twitter, they are now reaching out to a whole new generation of people.
Kevin Sabouni- 4th Period
ReplyDeleteI can see what they were thinking when they decided to do this, but I don't think that this is the correct solution for this problem. They want to have samples of how life was lived in our generation so when the future people look back in the library of congress, they will know how even average people lived. Twitter is a social networking site but I don't think that it is the best way to have records for how people lived. Twitter is mainly a website for people to update their status and share with the world what they are doing at the moment. Twitter would show what people were doing but it isn't s reliable source. People could be saying that they were flying with their wings. Obviously today we know that that can't be true but in the future if they were looking back upon that post, they would think that in the past we could fly. Good intentions but Twitter would not be the best solution.
Carlos Betancourt
ReplyDeletePeriod 4
This entire idea is ridiculous. One's Twitter is a personal matter and simply because a famous celebrity or such writes something they feel down doesn't mean the entire world must know for years to come. It may seem amusing now since anything an active celebrity does appears to be the most interesting thing ever but in a couple of years who is going to care what Ashton Kutcher does from morning to night? But the fact that the Library of Congress agrees with the whole idea is just pathetic. One goes to this library to find all sorts of interesting books whether it's fiction, nonfiction, or even biographies. But certainly not to read what a certain person does every minute of his life. Personally I think that just lowers the class of the library itself. The library of Congress is thought of of as a classy place to be and this sheme simply ruins it. Personal life should not be mixed with professional life because they are two completly different things. We should just all mind our own business and let our famous ones be remembered for what they do best rather than what they do every hour of their lives.
Jordan Davies - 4th
ReplyDeleteUsing twitter to mark historical events is interesting but i agree with carlos when he says it is ridiculous, even though then have good intetions i think that it will not be helpful in any way.
Christian Gomez
ReplyDelete4th Period
I think that this article shows how technologically advanced we are becoming in terms of being able to digitally record twitters and some judges actually using these tweets by placing them in the Library of Congress. I think that people do not understand the importance of thinking before posting something on the internet, because although you may be able to publicly erase, anyone who wishes can still access those files.
Anissia W. 6 <3
ReplyDeleteI think there are more important things to put in the Library of Congress. I understand they would show people in the future how many people communicated but Twitter to me is just the “thing” now. A few years ago it was emails, the text, myspace, facebook, and now Twitter. A year from now no one will be on Twitter because another website will come out and be better. Embracing the digital future is really smart, but there are other ways tweets are not a good way.
I never knew how important Twitter was! It’s cool that the library of congress looks at those. I never thought twitter would be the important, I never understood it. I don’t think that they are going to find anything really important now. It probably I waste of time but for me to know that the library of congress looks at that really amazes me. They aren’t going to get viral information on twitter. It’s pretty interesting that the things you are twittering are being look at by the library of congress.
ReplyDeleteZak shagroni 4th period.
Christopher Gallagher- 6th period
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with this idea that congress had come up with. On many oscial networking sites the users are assured their privacy if the choose to have some. With the congress saving people's tweets it ruins this sense of privacy. Also people might not want to speak their minds when they know more people than just their friends are looking at their posts and documenting them. All in all this idea isn't a good idea to me because of the loss of privacy the users are assured upon making a twitter.
Noel Jacob
ReplyDeleteI see this as a potentiality good thing. We don't know if the terrorists are using twitter to communicate. If so the government can save millions of lives. The internet can be the next surveillance unit. People don't call other any more. The truth is that there is a government satellite that picks up all call made by you. This is also a surveillance tactic. As for privacy, people should only care if they are putting something bad. IF twitter could save your relatives life would you not want the police to have that information. What the government is doing is just archiving it. They can already access your profile if they wanted. It is a good idea.
Annie Donovan
ReplyDelete5th period
I think that this is kind of creepy, especially for those people who don’t know that their “tweets” are being recorded. I wonder if Twitter let their users know about the collecting the tweets and storing them in records. I also think that this basically depletes and kind of privacy that the users want to have. Twitter will loose many of its users because of this. I also do not understand how Twitter is “historical”. Sure, its an advancement in technology, but is it really necessary to store the tweets in a database?
Seena Keerikattu
ReplyDelete5th Period :)
This is definitely interesting to me. The library of Congress is mesmerized by Twitter. It has both a positive and negative outlook. Maybe this use of information on websites, Twitter in this case, will be useful for future references. The perspectives and real life experiences of people around the world may cause ones curiosity to take a whirl in a sense that they strengthen ones strive to learn and build upon what they have grasped. Things can be posted for educational purposes. In comparison, once placed on the internet, it can be accessed by anyone around the globe. It is not safe to put things on the internet. People should think about what they are placing on the internet for all to see before they do. They must consider the possible effects.
Edward Qin 5th
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article, my first most immediate thought about this article is why would they need to store what people twitter about? Most people that twitter every few hours would not post any philosophical views. Although it could be used as a template to be remembered for, as the article stated. I don't think privacy would be that big of an issue for this project because there will be millions of messages being stored, so any thing anyone says would not matter as there are millions more who also twitter.
Alexis Willis - 5th Period(:
ReplyDelete"sorry i'm late." :/
It is the 21st century. Technology upgrades, so we upgrade. If congress wants to use twitter, lets use twitter. You can expect congress to still write notes, give it to an messenger, then send him off to give it to others, do you? So its time to upgrade, just a little(:
Mikayla Winland
ReplyDelete5th Period
This is definitely an interesting idea! This could be good or bad. Some things could come in handy. For example, if a person was killed, there could be some clues on their Twitter that could help identify what happened. However, if you post something bad, the whole world can see. This could get people thinking before they act. As they said, President Obama used Twitter for his 2008 election. The congress could look at what he has to say, and could think good or bad of him. I agree with Trevor that 140 characters is not enough for someone to write valuable information. I don't see how this could be helpful in the end, but it's amazing what people are coming up with these days.
Beth Sutton
ReplyDelete5th Period
Whoever thought of the idea of collecting "tweets" is obviously a pack-rat. Surely the information that stupid celebrities put on their twitter accounts could hardly be considered as valuable information. What's the use of saving it? It just clutters everything up and makes information that actually IS useful look irrelevant because now we have all this "cool digital internet knowledge!" No one thinks twice on what to publish on their twitter accounts, or their facebooks, myspaces, and blogspots for that matter. How could one study information like that?
Reinier D. C. 4th Period
ReplyDeleteTWEET! Okay, first thing, everything in the Internet is either real or fake, such as the databases. Also the sources of the Internet are us, human. We post things that informs other people about the history, but the catch is, people LIE! And we aren't really sure what happened 10,000 B. C. We never knew who the person was, where did they came from, or why they came here; everything we all knew is just a theory.
Brittany Bernard-4th
ReplyDeleteHonestly, i think this is stupid. I think twitter should be recognized because of the huge number of people that use the site, not what people are saying. Why should the goverment care what regular or even celebrities are saying. I understand the reasoning when there are comments concerning them, but to make this a documented deal is uncalled for.
Cara Slaybaugh
ReplyDelete5th. Period
This is really interesting to me. I've always thought Twitter was so stupid, but now it's something that's historical. I would have never thought about this at all. But in some cases the whole idea of "saving" twitters is a good and bad thing. People may post things they don't want to remember, so it can be contriversial. And yet, this can become part of our history with some of the things celebrities, and average people, post.
Brittany Kuusisto
ReplyDelete6th Period
I agree with Jeralyn. Twitter can be good or bad. Twitter can help spread word of things going on. But once you post something on the internet there is much trouble erasing it, and once it's there, it's there. Having records can cause some good, because the important things are saved. It's also bad, because the privacy of Twitter users is being violated.
Mebin Mathew - 5th
ReplyDeleteI don't think tweets of the present will influence the course of the future, or have any relevance in rereading. You can't really write something very meaningful under 140 characters. We could use the space for this on something helpful. No one cares if I just saw the latest episode of Glee, and no one in the future will care either
Sean Dotson- 6th peiod
ReplyDeleteI personally think that this is a waste of time and congress should be doing something more productive than looking at people tweets.
Vanessa Hurtado
ReplyDelete4th pd
I do not agree with keeping stored what people twitter. When people twitter it is usually about other celebrities or their own life. There shouldnt be any need to keep that information stored anywhere because you can not use it for something useful. If you stored information about the government or something in that area then it would make more sense. But in my opinion to keep twitter information would be useless.
Sidney Okon
ReplyDelete5th Period
It seems amazing that Twitter is playing such a role in history, I just thought it was just another website. I think this is a very thoughtful idea, although I don't think simple ideas posted by people should be kept in uch an important library. A reason is that people don't always give accurate information, they could just say something just to say it, and there's no way to tell if it's true or false. The second reason is why take information from Twitter when you can take information from a lot more accurate sources, for future generations to have access to? Sure they might want to know what people of our time said, but what would it do for them?
tommy batchelor-6th period
ReplyDeleteI don't think they should be doing this, one reason is they are gettign into peoples personal buisness. Even though they are sayign they agree to the terms people probably want their privacy. I think it could be a downfall in twitter and i think the goverment is trying to get into the life of people when they should be doign other stuff than this.
Miranda Molina Period 4
ReplyDeleteSocial Networking sites like twitter, Myspace. and facebook, are often criticized and though of as useless. The article demonstrates the pro's to having sites such as these present in our society. Communication is the main reason. It seems quite ironic that the criticism that is spoken about social networking sites such as of that of Twitter, comes from political people, and the fact of the matter is that they themselves use these social networking sites. Back to Communication, as the distance in our society lengthens, it becomes more challenging to keep up with family members and distant employees.
I have to agree with what Christopher G. said. He stated that “On many social networking sites the users are assured their privacy if the choose to have some” , therefore presenting a good argument against what the government states to be a choice made for our safety. It’s a big world, and there isn’t always going to be somebody right behind you to make sure that you are safe, and if the government were to ease off a little maybe then people will understand what importance privacy plays while on sites such as Twitter.
Nancy Tran- 5th
ReplyDeleteI think it would be an interesting thing to have records of what people twitter about now, and for the future generation to read about it later on in life. Not only is the future going to be learning about Obama’s campaign, and celebrities society, they will be able to see what ordinary people do in their daily lives too. They will get to read and see what people’s reactions were when many of the important historical events happen during that lifetime. Having all of the information saved in the Library of Congress can help prevent history form repeating itself, and how reactions towards an idea now can help determine the reactions towards ideas in the future. It also shows how technology has impacted society in just a couple of years, including its cultural history. But best of all, people will have to think be for they post.
Michelle Kuo ; 5th Period .
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don`t see much of a point in Twitter. To ask for it to be a documented part of our history seems a little ridiculous. People all over the world as updating their statuses and announcing their every move for the public to see. Like Tyle said, this is personal stuff. Wouldn`t storing it in our history take away their privacy?
Also, Twitter is based upon what one says. Can it be certain that everything posted on there is true? Because there`s a possibility of it not being true, it isn`t necessary for these things to be documented.
Reid Stacell - 6th
ReplyDeleteI'm glad they are not doing this for Facebook statuses, a lot of what goes on in these websites are not always to be taken literally. But to think that somewhere there is actually going to be an unending record of all of these is insane. Thats millions of pages a day worth of tweets, most useless and unimpressive. As much as I support the recording of history, I think it should be only things moderately important or interesting.
Karuna Antony 5th period
ReplyDeleteThe congress should have better things to worry about rather then twitter. Of course when theres a crime or a terrorist attempt, twitter may have some clues but thats just an invasion of privacy. People might go on to different social networks such as Facebook and Mypsace. Another point I would like to make is that people usally don't post or talk about serious issues like that on twitter.
May L
ReplyDelete4th pd.
If people think this is against their right of privacy, then they should not post their private information in an internet public domain. Nobody have to be worry if he or she has not posted any of his or her personal info publicly. I think this will serve as a good reminder to the public to think about what they are posting before putting it out on an unsecured site. Therefore, think before you tweet!
Jacob Fisher
ReplyDelete6th Period
Wow! This article is very interesting. It seems almost unbelieveable to think that Twitter will now have a big role in American history. The Library of Congress saving tweets is truly a major historical event. This is the same library that holds some of the most important documents in US history. The saving of tweets symbolize how the library is trying to relate with the new Internet generation. It is because of the Internet that people can now interact with each other and the world around them in only a matter of seconds. Things like magazines and newspappers will soon become completely oveshadowed by the Internet and websites like Twitter. This decision to save tweets is a turning point in American history.
Scott samwell 4h period
ReplyDeleteHow can you use twitter to record history thats crazy!Although its a crazy idea its pretty unique in the way that you are using a social website to record history that will probably go in government files.But i think that twitter is not an official matter,and that something more official is needed.
That electric car would be so much better than the cars we have now because of less gas it consumes and the less amount of money we would have to spend on it and it’s also less time consuming.
ReplyDeleteSteffie Philip
Period-6th