[Air-L] permissions for quoting tweets

Deen Freelon dfreelon at gmail.com
Wed Jan 25 07:07:11 PST 2012


Why can't we use the same standards many researchers have applied to 
blogs and print pubs--namely, that quoting tweets is fair game unless 
the account is protected? Anonymizing the names isn't foolproof--the 
text can still be searched and the user still identified in some cases 
(Twitter's search API only covers the previous week, but there are other 
ways of figuring out who posted something based solely on the text). 
Moreover, the Library of Congress is archiving all public tweets 
permanently anyway. Exceptions may be necessary for very sensitive 
material, but in that case there probably shouldn't be any quoting at 
all given the non-trivial possibility of identification. In the majority 
of cases I see tweets as essentially the same as other types of online 
self-publication. ~DEEN

On 1/25/2012 9:14 AM, Cornelius Puschmann wrote:
> Daria,
>
> assuming that the number of tweets is small and that you are not
> redistributing the data as such (something that Twitter doesn't like) you
> shouldn't really have any problems. Obtaining the user's permission and
> anonymizing the material will suffice in my opinion.
>
> Best,
>
> Cornelius
>
> On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 2:28 PM, Dayter<coocho at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Dear list members,
>>
>>
>> I am about to submit for publication an article that includes content
>> analysis of tweets, and a few of them are quoted in my paper. I wonder
>> if any kind of accepted practice exists already in this regard: do
>> Twitter's new terms of service mean that I need to obtain a permission
>> from Twitter to use tweets in the publication, or is it enough if I
>> have the authors' permission?
>> I apologise if this issue has been discussed already - I've joined the
>> list recently, and I've only seen the very end of the Twitter ToS
>> thread.
>>
>> best
>> daria
>>
>> --
>> Daria Dayter
>> Wiss. Mitarbeiterin
>> Englische Sprachwissenschaft
>> Nürnbergerstr. 38, Zi. 4.2.15
>> Tel. 0921/55-4644
>> daria.dayter at uni-bayreuth.de
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>
>


-- 
Deen Freelon, Ph.D.
Acting Assistant Professor
American University School of Communication
dfreelon at gmail.com
http://dfreelon.org




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