The Library of Congress announced this morning that it has acquired the complete archives of Twitter and all the brilliant insights therein. That’s every single Tweet, regardless of relevance or potential usefulness. Yup, even yours. Now future generations can learn how #youknowitsarecession and ponder the complexities of our collective concern over #ifbiebertrendsagain.
There’s only so much the LOC could divulge in its 140-character announcement (alright fine, here’s the extended edition) and many questions about the details of the acquisition and its ultimate purpose remain unanswered. Accordingly, most of those concerns are being discussed on Twitter. Will the data be used to create a better search engine for finding people and tweets for Twitter users? Will they be available for advertisers to target specific accounts? All my tweets about cat vomit are now in the Library of Congress? While most are prefacing the news with, “I’m famous!” many are also voicing concerns about their privacy. Sure your census information can’t be made public for 10 years, but that drunken Tweet? It’s forever.
Twitter heads currently at the massive conference Chirp, going on right now in San Francisco, are expected to release a response to the news shortly on their blog. The best, and certainly the most telling, part of it all, #Library and #Congress are currently trending on Twitter, so historians can laugh at our self-importance as we ReTweet the same 15 words to 200 followers, prefaced with, “Uh Oh”and “LMFAO!” Good luck decoding that, future Americans.
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