Why the Library of Congress is wrong to archive Twitter

  It was announced a couple of years ago that the Library of Congress was archiving all posts to Twitter for historic purposes.
  I thought I had written about why this is wrong, but I searched, and couldn't find it. So briefly here's why it is wrong.
  1. Twitter is a private company, with a corporate API.
  2. The Library of Congress has not, as far as we know, done anything to archive the open web. (Note: I mean bloggers. The equivalent content that's on Twitter, but not in a corporate blogging silo.)
  3. By archiving the flow of Twitter, they are providing an incentive for people to post to Twitter over the open web because their writing will be presumably available to posterity as part of a historic record.
  4. The government should not favor the service of a private company over an open service that is accessible to any entity, private or public. It amounts to a taxpayer subsidy, and makes Twitter more competitive over the open web.
  5. Twitter already has ample advantages over the open web. We don't need the government tilting it even further in their favor.
  July 20: More on the Library of Congress and Twitter.