Preserving History? Twitter Bans Archived Trump Tweets
April 19, 2021
The National Archives of the United States archives social media accounts of politicians. Former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account is among them. One of the benefits of archived Twitter accounts is that users can read and interact with old tweets. Twitter, however, banned Trump in early 2021 because he was deemed a threat to public safety. Politico explains the trouble the National Archives and Records Administration currently has getting Trump’s old tweets back online, “National Archives Can’t Resurrect Trump’s Tweets, Twitter Says.”
Other former Trump administration officials have their old tweets active on Twitter. Many National Archives staff view Twitter’s refusal to reactivate the tweets as censorship. Trump’s controversial tweets are part of a growing battle between Washington and tech giants, where the latter censors conservatives. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas lamented that the tech companies had so much control over communication.
Twitter is working with the National Archives on preserving Trump’s tweets. Twitter refuses to host any of Trump’s tweets, stating they glorified violence. The tweets will be available on the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library web site.
“Nevertheless, the process of preserving @realDonaldTrump’s tweets remains underway, NARA’s [James] Pritchett said, and since the account is banned from Twitter, federal archivists are ‘working to make the exported content available … as a download’ on the Trump Presidential Library website.
‘Twitter is solely responsible for the decision of what content is available on their platform,’ Pritchett said.’“NARA works closely with Twitter and other social media platforms to maintain archived social accounts from each presidential administration, but ultimately the platform owners can decline to host these accounts. NARA preserves platform independent copies of social media records and is working to make that content available to the public.’”
Is it really censorship if Trump’s tweets are publicly available just not through their first medium? Conservative politicians do have a valid argument. Big tech does control and influence communication, but does that give them the right to censor opinions? Future data archeologists may wonder about the gap.
Whitney Grace, April 19, 2021
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