Twitter, the Library of Congress, and your Tweets

Folks, be careful. Is that a piece of spinach sticking to your teeth? Is that safety pin holding up your hemline showing? You’re on candid camera – for ever and ever! Today came the news that Twitter is donating its digital archive of  public tweets to the Library of Congress. Your 140 character masterpieces are immortal now.

The august Library of Congress will archive the billions of public tweets and your weighty sayings will be available to humanity for all time to come. Earlier generations left us the Odyssey and the Iliad, the Mahabharata and the Vedas – we are going to leave future generations – our tweets!

“It is our pleasure to donate access to the entire archive of public Tweets to the Library of Congress for preservation and research. It’s very exciting that tweets are becoming part of history,” says Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, on the blog post titled Tweet Preservation.

“The Twitter digital archive has extraordinary potential for research into our contemporary way of life,” noted Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on the site

“This information provides detailed evidence about how technology based social networks form and evolve over time. The collection also documents a remarkable range of social trends. Anyone who wants to understand how an ever-broadening public is using social media to engage in an ongoing debate regarding social and cultural issues will have need of this material.”

Some tweets are on their way to becoming iconic: the first-ever tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (http://twitter.com/jack/status/20), President Obama’s tweet about winning the election (http://twitter.com/barackobama/status/992176676), and a set of two tweets from a photojournalist who was arrested in Egypt and then freed because of a series of events set into motion by his use of Twitter (http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/786571964 and http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/787167620).

So the Library of Congress is going to enshrine your tweets – the good, the bad and the ugly – forever. There are some advantages of course – Tweets can become the cheat sheet, the Cliff notes for future generations. If someone in the year 2050 has to write about the past decades, the Twitter trending topics can give them a birds-eye view.   For prolific tweeters like Shashi Tharoor, archives of their tweets could well become the next Great Indian Novel!

But remember everything now is there for posterity – from inane comments to an indiscriminate chop-chop of the English language. So tweet responsibly – don’t tweet and drive – it will be on your record forever, and your great great grandchildren will see your indiscretions too!