Twitter won't even host Trump's tweets for the National Archive
On Jan. 8 Twitter permanently suspended then-president Donald Trump from its platform, and the people rejoiced. It now seems the social media giant is sticking to that stance, with the company refusing to host an archive of @realDonaldTrump's tweets for the National Archives and Records Administration.
As reported by Politico, the National Archives has been working to build an official archive of all of Trump's presidential tweets, from "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" to "covfefe." The National Archives also intends to include any deleted or removed tweets, giving people a complete view of exactly what the hell went on there. It's fair to say that having a complete record of Trump's infamous posts is important, if only to allow historians to more easily conduct America's post-mortem.
However, while a Twitter spokesperson told Mashable via email that the company is working with the National Archives to preserve @realDonaldTrump's tweets, "as is standard with any administration transition," it appears to be drawing the line at hosting them again.
"Given that we permanently suspended @realDonaldTrump, the content from the account will not appear on Twitter as it did previously or as archived administration accounts do currently, regardless of how NARA decides to display the data it has preserved," said the spokesperson. "Administration accounts that are archived on the service are accounts that were not in violation of the Twitter Rules. "
Twitter currently hosts government accounts officially archived by the National Archives, meaning they can still be liked, retweeted, and responded to. That won't be the case for Trump's account, which is probably for the best. Regardless of how the National Archives ultimately preserves the former president's words, Twitter's refusal to host them means users won't be able to easily spread his tweets on the social media platform and plunge us back into the 2020 hellscape. That's over — we're dealing with the 2021 hellscape now.
"Twitter is solely responsible for the decision of what content is available on their platform," the National Archives Public and Media Communications said in a statement to Mashable. "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."
SEE ALSO:Twitter confirms Trump's ban is permanent, even if he runs again in 2024Fortunately (?) there are already unofficial archives of Trump's 280-character missives that may tide historians over while the National Archives sorts out its plans. The Trump Twitter Archive keeps a searchable record of all 56,571 of the former president's tweets, including any deleted after September 2016.
Still, it's good to know we won't see Trump's inciting words pervading Twitter again. Enough damage has already been done.
"Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly," Twitter wrote at the time of Trump's suspension. "It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open. However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things."
UPDATE: April 9, 2021, 9:23 a.m. AEST This article has been updated to include a statement from the National Archives Public and Media Communications.
TopicsTwitterDonald Trump