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Is There a Twitter Archive?
In order to answer the question, “Is there a Twitter archive?” we have to understand what the data will consist of. A tweet contains about 150 pieces of metadata, such as the time stamp, location, and unique numerical ID. These elements are also reflected in the archive, along with any replies, favorites, or retweets that were made. For example, if someone tweeted “I love cats,” the archive will include their cat’s name, their url, and the number of followers they have.
Information about the Library of Congress’s planned digital archive of all public tweets
The planned digital archive of all public tweets will only contain text, not images, videos or animated gifs. Twitter’s changing nature has limited the scope of this project. On the same subject : How to Save Videos From Twitter. While the Library of Congress had hoped to create a repository for tweets and images, it has run into access problems. The tweet archive will remain embargoed until the library overcomes these problems.
The Library of Congress has been creating archival collections of Web sites since 2000 and has collected 525 terabytes of web archives as of March 2014, growing at a rate of five terabytes per month. Because public tweets have become a permanent part of the history of cultural and world events, the Library of Congress saw a need to archive this data.
The Library of Congress is working with Twitter to create this digital archive. The goal is to make the archive accessible to researchers who would benefit from its content. Twitter started tweeting in March 2006 and has accumulated over 50 million tweets a day. As a result, the Library of Congress will be able to view the tweets of millions of people. This archive will be made available for six months after they were originally posted.
Challenges in accessing the archive
The Library of Congress has been an expert in preserving massive amounts of digital information, archiving presidential and congressional campaign sites since 2000 and collecting more than 525 terabytes of Web archive data. Yet, the Library of Congress has encountered several unique technical challenges in accessing the Twitter archive. On the same subject : Can I Scrape Data From Twitter?. The size of the archive – 21 billion tweets containing more than 50 fields of metadata each – makes it particularly difficult to access.
Researchers have tried to mine the Twitter archive for useful insights, but they have encountered several challenges. One of the biggest challenges is that Twitter only allows researchers to access the latest 3200 tweets. This means that researchers are forced to make assumptions about keywords and topics, and may not be able to verify the validity of their sampled data. Other social networks have far stricter licensing policies and do not even allow researchers to download the entire archive.
The Twitter archive contains 150 pieces of metadata. Every tweet contains a unique numerical ID, a timestamp, and location stamp, as well as a list of replies, favorites, and retweets. Users can also see information such as the number of followers they have. The Library of Congress may be able to provide direct access to individual data elements in the Twitter archive. However, there are still several challenges to be addressed before the Twitter archive can be made publicly available.
Size of the archive
The Library of Congress has recently confirmed the size of the Twitter archive. According to the Library, the archive contains 150 pieces of metadata, including a unique numerical ID, timestamp, and location stamp. It also contains IDs for replies, favorites, retweets, and language. See the article : How Do I Find My Twitter Link on the App?. As of the time of writing, the archive contains over one hundred and forty billion tweets. However, if one wishes to access all of these data elements, there are no practical ways to do so.
Although the Library of Congress is experienced with preserving large amounts of digital information, this project presents unique challenges for the agency. In particular, the size of the Twitter Archive poses a unique technical challenge. The archive contains 21 billion tweets from 2006-2010, each with over 50 fields of metadata. The Library of Congress received the data in early 2012, and Gnip was selected to handle the delivery of the archive to users.
While there are no plans to restrict access to the Twitter archive, the size of the repository is estimated to be a quarter of the global output of news. This figure is even higher if retweets are removed. Twitter messages are published on the Web already, and the Library of Congress wants to preserve them for future generations. As such, it is essential to preserve the archive. However, it is unclear whether the Library of Congress will provide users with access to their tweets and what controls they will have.
