The Library of Congress No Longer Wants All the Tweets (by Niraj Chokshi/New York Times)

Hurry, you have just a few more days to ensure a spot for your tweets in the collections of the Library of Congress.

After archiving every single public message posted on Twitter since the social media platform was introduced in March 2006, the institution will soon scale back its approach to collecting them.

Starting on Jan. 1, 2018, the library will apply the same selective discretion to tweets that it uses for other documents, collecting and archiving material around themes or events of consequence.

The move, announced in a Tuesday blog post, brings to an end an ambitious effort, which began in 2010 when Twitter donated its full archive of public tweets to the library.

“The Twitter Archive may prove to be one of this generation’s most significant legacies,” the library said in a document detailing the decision. “Future generations will learn much about this rich period in our history, the information flows, and social and political forces that help define the current generation.”

Twitter has come a long way since one of its founders, Jack Dorsey, posted the first tweet on March 21, 2006. Today, many organizations, celebrities and politicians, including President Trump, view it as a crucial tool for reaching their audiences.

The service has also shrunk the distance between the anonymous and the famous, the frivolous and the serious.
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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. And the most retweeted message was a plea from a teenager on a quest for a year’s worth of free chicken nuggets. Make of that what you will.

(Read the entire article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/technology/library-congress-tweets.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FLibraries%20and%20Librarians&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection)