1. • Twitter
• Twitter is one of the popular social media
sites on the internet
• Founded in 2006
• Library of Congress
• Oldest federal cultural institution in
America
• Founded in 1800
Introduction and
Background

2. • April 15, 2010 - the Library of Congress
announces that they will archive the
complete corpus of Twitter since the start
of the company.
• Billions of tweets
• 50 million more tweets created per day
• My question: where is privacy in this
discussion?
• The explicit answer: privacy is ignored or
dismissed
• The better answer: privacy is directly
The announcement

3. • Data gathered
• Press releases from Library of Congress
and Twitter
• Retrieved all articles available through
Lexis-Nexis for two weeks after the
announcement using search terms
"twitter" and "library of congress"
• Ethical codes of the Society of American
Archivists and American Library
Association
• Analysis
• Textual analysis of press releases and 17
Methods: a textual
analysis

4. • From the Library of Congress
• Research potential for studying
contemporary life - social and cultural
issues
• Documentation of social trends
• Shows how networks develop over time
• From Twitter
• Affirmation of the importance of the
company and the service
• Tells an amazing story of current times
The justification

5. • Juxtaposing the mundane and the historic
• From bacon to Iranian revolutions.
• Resource for future social scientists
• "your indiscretions will be able to be seen
by generations of graduate students"
• Contrast between fame and mundane
• Tweeters mentioned by name: Ashton
Kutcher, Kanye West, Ice-T
• Linking prestige - historical LoC to upstart
Twitter
• Privacy was mentioned but usually dismissed
The reaction of the
press

6. • Problem of collection
• Is privacy an individual or collective right?
• Is privacy governed by legalistic terms of
service or some other alternative?
• Problem of technological development
• Feenberg's two-step process of technical
development
• Abstraction away from context, then
reinterpretation into social situation
• Twitter coopts the second step
Ethical problems and
discussion

7. • Society of American Archivists promise:
"protect the privacy rights of donors and
individuals or groups who are the subject of
records."
• Fails on basic interpretation
• Fails on standard behavior of archivists
• American Library Association promise:
"library user’s right to privacy and
confidentiality with respect to information
sought or received and resources consulted,
borrowed, acquired or transmitted."
Problem of professional
actions

8. • Twitter is great
• Social media can bring people together in
positive ways
• Twitter is awful
• But at the price of changing our
definitions and attitudes toward privacy.
• The conversation must continue
• We should make these choices with our
eyes open.
Conclusion

9. • Todd Suomela
• University of Tennessee
• tes@utk.edu <mailto:tes@utk.edu>
Contact

10. • Todd Suomela
• University of Tennessee
• tes@utk.edu <mailto:tes@utk.edu>
Contact