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White House Press Secretary's Tweets Archived

Posted by samzenpus on from the for-future-generations dept.

RedTeflon writes "The White House spokesman, who has just started using Twitter, told reporters this afternoon that he met with government lawyers yesterday to determine whether his tweets would be archived along with emails and just about everything else produced at the White House. After deliberation, White House lawyers have decided that any and all tweets will be archived in keeping with the Presidential Records Act of 1978."

2 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. which prompts the question by Eil · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After deliberation, White House Lawyers have decided that any and all tweets will be archived in keeping with the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

    I'd be curious to know what there is to deliberate about. Why wouldn't the White House archive all non-classified records and communications?

  2. Re:It seems kind of pointless by mysidia · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Deleting a tweet draws even more attention to its text when just one of the >100,000 followers noticed the tweet went away

    There are entire websites already dedicated to archiving all deleted tweets

    I'd be far more concerned about integrity of the message.

    For example, what happens if Twitter.com admins decide to alter the text of a tweet during posting, or shortly after it is posted?

    Such as to censor bad words, block certain tweets from being published (spam filter), or alteration for selfish commercial purposes (such as adding ad placement to their tweet)

    Then the "archived" tweet might not even actually be close to what got published, or might not reflect the version that was the most widely disseminated.