The Library of Congress No Longer Wants All the Tweets<br />“Future generations will learn much about this rich period in our history, the information flows,<br />and social and political forces that help define the current generation.”<br />Today, many organizations, celebrities and politicians, including President Trump, view it as a crucial tool for reaching their audiences.<br />The most-liked tweet of 2017 was a quotation about unity posted by former President Obama in the wake of the white supremacist violence this summer in Charlottesville, Va.<br />And the most retweeted message was a plea from a teenager on a quest for a year’s worth of free chicken nuggets.<br />Starting on Jan. 1, 2018, the library will apply the same selective discretion to tweets<br />that it uses for other documents, collecting and archiving material around themes or events of consequence.<br />The library’s decision, the result of a continuing evaluation of its practices, was driven by a number of factors, from<br />the difficulty of maintaining the collection to the waning need for a comprehensive archive, the library said.
