Honestly, I wish tweets were treated like verbal exchanges more than written. Not everything that is said needs to be recorded for perpetuity. If a politician or someone powerful tweets, then sure it might be in someone's interest to record it. Good luck to them. But unless you're someone that people really care about - it should be fine to just delete your tweet for good. If that means something problematic was tweeted but lost, then so be it.
But they aren't and won't ever be, and people should stop treating them like they are. It's no different than going to your local public square full of 200 people holding camcorders, and making a bunch of stupid statements.
Did we all do stupid stuff when we were younger: absolutely. Would I want the entire world to see what I did as a teenager and judge me for it? Absolutely not.
Which is EXACTLY why I personally think society should just not allow people under about the age of 25 to even be on social media in the first place. I know, I know, that will never happen because insert reason - but if we don't want everyone's actions to be recorded in perpetuity we should probably stop allowing them to post those actions in a forum that's open to the entire world and easily recorded. You can make laws until you're blue in the face, it's not going to stop an individual from saving whatever stupid thing you said or did and leaking it anonymously should the moment present itself.
"New York Times rule is a commonsense rule of ethical conduct that a person should not do anything arguably newsworthy in public or in private that one would mind having reported on the front page of a major newspaper. The rule ultimately protects defamatory falsehood.
New York Times rule is also known as New York Times test or New York Times v. Sullivan rule."
This kind of thing can never be materially accomplished though. Whenever you post something publicly to the internet, any recipient can back it up indefinitely, separately from the origin network. This is a fundamental material reality. No amount of legislation or centralized control of the content can overcome it.
Ultimately people will have to culturally/collectively get over everyone's internet past, change their own behavior after understanding this new reality, and deal with the consequences of their speech. Even if it were possible, having the ability to remove all copies of past speech would probably produce worse social outcomes. I think I'd rather deal with a person's complicated history, than a history that has been selectively revised to deceive me.
Private, perishable communication is only possible peer-to-peer, through a secure tunnel or network you own, with a person you trust to delete it. The same applies to verbal speech honestly, if you tell somebody something in confidence, it's up to them not to tell anybody else. People just need to accept that using twitter is like making a press release and not like talking to some friends.
The very presence of retweets and likes means they can't ever be treated like verbal conversations. It is a written record mistaken as ephermeral one, period.
But tweets can be important. Who decides whats important and therefore needs to be archived and what not? No one. In the digital age harddrive capacity is basicially infinite so we save everything.
This opinion always reads to me as: "I want to be able to speak in public without fear of consequence." That's never been the case and I don't know why anybody thinks it ever has. Digital technology created infallible memory, to be sure, but memory isn't a new thing.
It's weird to see the backlash against this when people here are the first to speak out about the need to preserve the internet. Like it or not, Tweets are part of the historical record, and I welcome this move.
People need to be careful what they post online, but come on. Do they really need to archive every tweet?
Seems like they are taking their mission too far. Archiving every post from Usenet dating channels from 20+ years, every tweet, etc. Seems a bit excessive at this point.
Whether or not every tweet in existence should be archived is irrelevant. The fact is they can be, so they should be treated as though they will be.
Saying "no please don't" will never stop something that is technologically possible from happening. Murphy's law applies here and everywhere in tech (and frankly, in most areas of life).
Basically people should be posting anonymously on the internet (via distinct handles with no connection with one's real name), as is done in Hacker News (although a small percent do post enough details in their posts to connect with their real name). Lots of us started out posting with our real names in the last century (on Usenet for example) and after a while realized how poor an idea this was.
Well said, I stopped using Reddit and Twitter because I realized a few things.
First arguing with other angry people all day has never accomplished anything.
Second no matter what you say, in 10 or 20 years it might be absurdly offensive and that can destroy your entire life. The dumbest thing you ever said at 19 is a part of your identity even when you're 42. But that only applies to the internet. If I said something really horrible to you at a bar, the worst that will happen is I'll probably just get kicked out.
I say that on Twitter, you can destroy my career for the rest of my life
Of course this will get weaponized, if it isn't already.
We've seen time and time again that a vile old tweet in the wrong hands can be very powerful, it's a ticking time bomb. Think 5 or even 10+ years down the road, some of the kids who are edgy on twitter today might go in to politics or hold some other high level position.
I don't think the current climate is going to cool down anytime soon, but maybe something like this will either lead to mutually assured destruction or, what I'm hoping for, old tweets losing their power in the long run.
I suspect that as a larger and larger percent of the population has a cringey internet past to look back on, the power of old tweets will fade somewhat. It'll take a while though, and of course depends on how vile the past actions are.
High level position? What about automated scrapers and personality algorithms selling profiles to your future employers and insurance companies 20 years later? “This person used to swear a lot, which means they are more likely to be hiding <some condition> that <the data purchaser> is concerned about.” In the gig economy, everyone is a brand that has to be built up and that can be torn down
On the bright side it will be an interesting way to analyze how people's views change over time, seeing how they tweet over a long period. Note that the same tool that can condemn a person can also exonerate them: if they were once upon a time filled with hate an ignorance, and then over time changed, you can show this path convincingly with a full tweet history. But yeah I hope the power to quote out of context to hurt people fades, and quickly.
But the root of the problem is not the technology, it is the people and the culture.
I have no doubt, using tweets to cancel people is a deliberate tactic of the far left activists to win the culture war. And they are winning, a lot.
After a few more decades, cancel the First Amendment and put people in prison bc of wrong speech is not impossible. Right now the focus is race, gender, identity politics, but it can be easily switched to economic issues. Dark days are ahead of us.
It seems the whole world will have to relearn why forgiveness was once a virtue the hard way. In the near term, it's causing a bifurcation of society into people who exist and had an opinion versus those who didn't, or those who didn't _yet_. In time it seems like the former is just getting larger and larger.
Imagine how the field of mathematics would have evolved if we simply cast aside those who had ever failed to solve a math problem correctly. It needs to be okay for people to make mistakes, otherwise we will never grow as a race.
I can’t say I’m particularly excited about this. People are going to tweet things at 15 years old that they’re going to regret at 30. Why should there be a permanent record of everything that was ever tweeted? It just comes across as obsessive and black mirror-y.
In 2021, I am a little surprised and amused to see so many people who seem to be shocked (shocked!) that the things they post on the Internet might get archived forever. Especially on HN, where technological literacy tends to be a at least a little bit higher than than the average tweeter.
Even back in the early days, it was a common-sense rule of thumb that you never put something on the Internet that you wouldn't want written in the newspaper about you, even in "private" forums such as IRC channels and email. Let alone something as public as twitter.
What are the legal implications of this in regards to the right of being forgotten, copyright laws or even the simple issue of moderation? For example if someone posts a hateful tweet or some extremist content (e.g. photos of terror, etc.) which goes against the law (and therefore gets taken down by Twitter) is it not reprehensible if archive.org is re-publishing such content?
I wonder if that is really necessary. Sure, some accounts (like politicians) may need to be preserved until their words may are no longer significant, but why keep the random tweets of irrelevant accounts.
the only reason one could be concerned about/afraid of this is if they recognize that the window of politically acceptable thought is shifting faster than ever these days, such that today's seemingly levelheaded opinion could be cause for cancellation years down the road. that should be the actual cause for concern, not the fact that things that were publicly posted to the Web are being archived.
[+] [-] nanna|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tw04|5 years ago|reply
Did we all do stupid stuff when we were younger: absolutely. Would I want the entire world to see what I did as a teenager and judge me for it? Absolutely not.
Which is EXACTLY why I personally think society should just not allow people under about the age of 25 to even be on social media in the first place. I know, I know, that will never happen because insert reason - but if we don't want everyone's actions to be recorded in perpetuity we should probably stop allowing them to post those actions in a forum that's open to the entire world and easily recorded. You can make laws until you're blue in the face, it's not going to stop an individual from saving whatever stupid thing you said or did and leaking it anonymously should the moment present itself.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|5 years ago|reply
https://definitions.uslegal.com/n/new-york-times-rule/
"New York Times rule is a commonsense rule of ethical conduct that a person should not do anything arguably newsworthy in public or in private that one would mind having reported on the front page of a major newspaper. The rule ultimately protects defamatory falsehood.
New York Times rule is also known as New York Times test or New York Times v. Sullivan rule."
[+] [-] chrisdone|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saon|5 years ago|reply
Ultimately people will have to culturally/collectively get over everyone's internet past, change their own behavior after understanding this new reality, and deal with the consequences of their speech. Even if it were possible, having the ability to remove all copies of past speech would probably produce worse social outcomes. I think I'd rather deal with a person's complicated history, than a history that has been selectively revised to deceive me.
Private, perishable communication is only possible peer-to-peer, through a secure tunnel or network you own, with a person you trust to delete it. The same applies to verbal speech honestly, if you tell somebody something in confidence, it's up to them not to tell anybody else. People just need to accept that using twitter is like making a press release and not like talking to some friends.
[+] [-] lifthrasiir|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] contravariant|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] entropie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EvanAnderson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] iJohnDoe|5 years ago|reply
People need to be careful what they post online, but come on. Do they really need to archive every tweet?
Seems like they are taking their mission too far. Archiving every post from Usenet dating channels from 20+ years, every tweet, etc. Seems a bit excessive at this point.
This also can’t help with the social cooling.
[+] [-] causasui|5 years ago|reply
Saying "no please don't" will never stop something that is technologically possible from happening. Murphy's law applies here and everywhere in tech (and frankly, in most areas of life).
[+] [-] pasttense01|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] scandox|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] offtop5|5 years ago|reply
First arguing with other angry people all day has never accomplished anything.
Second no matter what you say, in 10 or 20 years it might be absurdly offensive and that can destroy your entire life. The dumbest thing you ever said at 19 is a part of your identity even when you're 42. But that only applies to the internet. If I said something really horrible to you at a bar, the worst that will happen is I'll probably just get kicked out.
I say that on Twitter, you can destroy my career for the rest of my life
[+] [-] snicksnak|5 years ago|reply
We've seen time and time again that a vile old tweet in the wrong hands can be very powerful, it's a ticking time bomb. Think 5 or even 10+ years down the road, some of the kids who are edgy on twitter today might go in to politics or hold some other high level position.
I don't think the current climate is going to cool down anytime soon, but maybe something like this will either lead to mutually assured destruction or, what I'm hoping for, old tweets losing their power in the long run.
[+] [-] showerst|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gentleman11|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AzzieElbab|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javajosh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] temp8964|5 years ago|reply
I have no doubt, using tweets to cancel people is a deliberate tactic of the far left activists to win the culture war. And they are winning, a lot.
After a few more decades, cancel the First Amendment and put people in prison bc of wrong speech is not impossible. Right now the focus is race, gender, identity politics, but it can be easily switched to economic issues. Dark days are ahead of us.
[+] [-] f38zf5vdt|5 years ago|reply
Imagine how the field of mathematics would have evolved if we simply cast aside those who had ever failed to solve a math problem correctly. It needs to be okay for people to make mistakes, otherwise we will never grow as a race.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kmfrk|5 years ago|reply
Feels super gross to see.
[+] [-] EvanAnderson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fireattack|5 years ago|reply
Also, i can't seem to be able to download the actual data (only the matadata), it says "Files marked with [lock icon] are not available for download." at https://archive.org/download/archiveteam_twitter_20210316071....
[+] [-] oytis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] booleandilemma|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bityard|5 years ago|reply
Even back in the early days, it was a common-sense rule of thumb that you never put something on the Internet that you wouldn't want written in the newspaper about you, even in "private" forums such as IRC channels and email. Let alone something as public as twitter.
[+] [-] miduil|5 years ago|reply
https://web.archive.org/web/%2A/https://twitter.com/colorofb...
What's kind of worrying is also that most people who retrieve the artifacts are bots, so clearly becomes an important data source for others.
[+] [-] rowanseymour|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PastaMonster|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oytis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dustinmoris|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mvzvm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abhayhegde|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] progval|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EvanAnderson|5 years ago|reply
Put another way: Tomorrow's noteworthy person may be today's nobody.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] adamrezich|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vxNsr|5 years ago|reply