#BlackLivesMatter tweets vanishing 10 years after hashtag started

TinyPizza@kbin.social to Politics@kbin.social – 92 points –
#BlackLivesMatter tweets vanishing 10 years after hashtag started
axios.com

35% of #BlackLivesMatter tweets created between 2013 and 2021 are no longer available on Twitter, report finds.

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It's so weird to think what will happen to the voices of movements that were widespread and then become fragmented as time goes on. Somehow it feels like the internet never forgets but then what happened to the voices of Occupy? I hope the Fediverse will help in preserving such things with it's decentralized nature. No fuck boy Elons running around deciding what history stays written.

The Fediverse is far worse for keeping things.

Lots of small instances, who’s hosts aren’t able to run a server for as many years as a large company can afford to.

All your comments are one bad day away from your admin deciding to close down their server and spend their energy elsewhere.

The internet can often never forget but things do get wiped out when sites go under. Think about random forums from a decade ago with dead links or images that aren't hosted anymore.

Some tweets actually get backed up by the Library of Congress so some percentage of voices are probably preserved.

I think we tend to overestimate how solid things are, even in the digital world. The concept of "bit-rot", for instance, shows how online links degrade over time as sites move or, say, a major website preparing for an IPO enrages its users who then delete or edit all their comments in protest (lol, like that'd ever happen).

Semi-relevant xkcd

Bit rot? Forgive an old Gen X gamer, but that's a term I heard thrown around in the 1990s to refer to the steady decay of optical media; CD-ROMs and such. Has the definition been changed? Or perhaps addended?

Oops, good catch - "link rot" was the term I was thinking of, should have wiki'd it before so confidently posting.

Make a gimmick out of something and it gets old. People are fickle; trendy crusades get boring. Remember when 'time was up' about 10 years ago? Me too neither.

Sad, but true.

Maybe if you think human rights for people with different color skin than you is a "fickle" and "trendy crusade," then it's time for you to reevaluate your positions.

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