WASHINGTON: The Library of Congress, repository of the world’s largest collection of books, has set for itself the enormous task of archiving something less weighty and far more ephemeral — Americans’ billions of tweets.
The venerable US institution is assembling all of the 400 million tweets sent by Americans each day, in the belief that each of the mini-messages reflect a small but important part of the national narrative.
“An element of our mission at the Library of Congress is to collect the story of America, and to acquire collections that will have research value,” according to Gayle Osterberg, director of communications at the library.
The Library of Congress, located off the National Mall in Washington, houses millions of hard copy books and historic documents, and its online archives amass millions of additional works produced by Americans for more than two centuries.
Now it wants to be keeper of the nation’s brief Internet messages as well: Twitter in April 2010 inked a deal with the Library, giving it access to tweets dating back to the company’s inception in 2006.
Collecting the 140-character micro-missives, said Osterberg, is in keeping with the library’s main goal “to collect the story of America and to acquire collections that will have research value.”
One major challenge to the Library, however, is storing the messages from the popular social messaging site, which now number 170 billion. Twitter last month said the number of active users on the messaging platform has topped 200 million, most of whom are in the United States.
Tweets that have been deleted or that are locked will not be among those gathered by the Library of Congress.
Among the messages to be preserved for posterity are the first-ever tweets sent by one of the company’s founders, Jack Dorsey.
Also saved for all time is a famous tweet sent by President Barack Obama after his historic November 2008 victory to claim the White House in his first term.
“We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion. All of this happened because of you. Thanks,” read the micro-message from the famously tech-savvy US president.
Unlike traditional bound books or even digital web pages, the real challenge of preserving tweets is keeping up with their number, which has continued to grow almost exponentially.
There were 140 million tweets sent each day in February 2011, but more than three times as many — about a half billion — by October 2012.
The Library of Congress’s tweets are being stored by Gnip, Inc., a social media aggregation company headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, which has put more than 133,000 gigabytes of storage space available.
Gnip says it is a particular challenge to gather tweets during “peak” times, such as news event watched the world over like the Japanese tsunami in March 2011, which generated many thousand tweets per second.
It has proven to be a Herculean challenge for Gnip to make tweets accessible to all those who wish to view them.
So far it has been unable to meet the demands of researchers worldwide who hope to access the archive. Even a search among the first four years of tweets, from 2006 to 2010, could take about 24 hours.
“It is clear that technology to allow for scholarship access to large data sets is lagging behind technology for creating and distributing such data,” said a recent white paper published by the Library of Congress.
“This is an inadequate situation,” the Library concluded, calling the massive archiving project “prohibitively costly.”
And yet Lee Humphreys, a professor of communication at Cornell University in New York, said that the brief online messages can reveal volumes “about the culture where they were produced.”
America archives its billions of tweets
America archives its billions of tweets
Croatian right wing singer Marko Perkovic and fans perform pro Nazi salute at massive concert
- Organizers said that half a million people attended Perkovic’s concert in the Croatian capital
- The Nazi salute is punishable by law in Croatia, but courts have ruled Perkovic can use it as part of his song, the Croatian state television HRT said
ZAGREB: A hugely popular right-wing Croatian singer and hundreds of thousands of his fans performed a pro-Nazi World War II salute at a massive concert in Zagreb, drawing criticism.
One of Marko Perkovic’s most popular songs, played in the late Staurday concert, starts with the dreaded “For the homeland — Ready!” salute, used by Croatia’s Nazi-era puppet Ustasha regime that ran concentration camps at the time.
Perkovic, whose stage name is Thompson after a US-made machine gun, had previously said both the song and the salute focus on the 1991-95 ethnic war in Croatia, in which he fought using the American firearm, after the country declared independence from the former Yugoslavia. He says his controversial song is “a witness of an era.”
The 1990s conflict erupted when rebel minority Serbs, backed by neighboring Serbia, took up guns, intending to split from Croatia and unite with Serbia.
Perkovic’s immense popularity in Croatia reflects prevailing nationalist sentiments in the country 30 years after the war ended.
The WWII Ustasha troops in Croatia brutally killed tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma and antifascist Croats in a string of concentration camps in the country. Despite documented atrocities, some nationalists still view the Ustasha regime leaders as founders of the independent Croatian state.
Organizers said that half a million people attended Perkovic’s concert in the Croatian capital. Video footage aired by Croatian media showed many fans displaying pro-Nazi salutes earlier in the day.
The salute is punishable by law in Croatia, but courts have ruled Perkovic can use it as part of his song, the Croatian state television HRT said.
Perkovic has been banned from performing in some European cities over frequent pro-Nazi references and displays at his gigs.
Croatia’s Vecernji List daily wrote that the concert’s “supreme organization” has been overshadowed by the use of the salute of a regime that signed off on “mass executions of people.”
Regional N1 television noted that whatever the modern interpretations of the salute may be its roots are “undoubtedly” in the Ustasha regime era.
N1 said that while “Germans have made a clear cut” from anything Nazi-related “to prevent crooked interpretations and the return to a dark past ... Croatia is nowhere near that in 2025.”
In neighboring Serbia, populist President Aleksandar Vucic criticized Perkovic’s concerts as a display “of support for pro-Nazi values.” Former Serbian liberal leader Boris Tadic said it was a “great shame for Croatia” and “the European Union” because the concert “glorifies the killing of members of one nation, in this case Serbian.”
Croatia joined the EU in 2013.
Croatian police said Perkovic’s concert was the biggest ever in the country and an unseen security challenge, deploying thousands of officers.
No major incidents were reported.
South Korea prosecutors file request to detain ex-president Yoon
- Former leader facing charges related to insurrection from when he declared martial law last year
SEOUL: South Korean special prosecutors on Sunday filed a request to detain former President Yoon Suk Yeol on charges related to insurrection from when he declared martial law last year, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“Detention request is related to allegations of abuse of power and obstruction of justice,” the statement from the special counsel of prosecutors investigating the December 3 incident said.
Yoon’s martial law decree was lifted about six hours after it was announced when lawmakers, who had been forced to scale the walls of the assembly building to make it through a ring of security forces, voted the decree down.
Yoon was summoned on Saturday for hours of questioning by the special counsel as part of the probe over the insurrection charges, according to the counsel officials.
Yoon’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment on Sunday.
Switzerland reopens its embassy in Tehran after two-week closure
VIENNA: Switzerland, which also represents US interests in Iran, has reopened its embassy in Tehran after a closure due to the air war between Israel and Iran, the Swiss foreign ministry said on Sunday.
“Ambassador Nadine Olivieri Lozano and a small team returned to Tehran yesterday overland via Azerbaijan. The embassy will gradually resume operations,” the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. It had been closed since June 20.
OPEC+ to raise output by 548,000 bpd in August as market outlook improves
RIYADH: Eight members of the OPEC+ alliance of oil exporting nations say they will boost oil production by 548,000 barrels per day in August in a move that could further reduce gas prices this year.
The decision came after a virtual meeting on July 5, where the group — comprising Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman — reviewed global market conditions and cited a steady economic outlook and low oil inventories as reasons for the increase.
The planned output hike is part of a broader, gradual return of 2.2 million barrels per day of voluntary cuts announced in December 2024. Under that agreement, the eight producers began easing their curbs in April 2025, with the August increase representing the equivalent of four scheduled monthly increments.
OPEC+ emphasized that the gradual ramp-up remains flexible and could be paused or reversed if market conditions warrant. This adaptive approach, the group said, aims to safeguard oil market stability amid evolving global dynamics.
In addition to the production increase, the eight countries reaffirmed their commitment to full compliance with the alliance’s Declaration of Cooperation. They also pledged to compensate for any overproduction since January 2024, with oversight provided by the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee.
Monthly meetings will continue to assess supply, demand, and conformity. The next gathering is scheduled for Aug. 3, when members will decide on production levels for September.
Shubman Gill, the ‘Prince’ who is now India’s new cricket king
- Gill becomes first batter in 148 years of Test history to make scores of 250, 150 in same match
- He succeeded Rohit Sharma as India captain after the latter announced Test retirement in May
Birmingham, United Kingdom: India captain Shubman Gill continued to give fresh meaning to the phrase “leading from the front” with a stunning innings of 161 in the ongoing second Test against England at Edgbaston on Saturday.
The 25-year-old’s second century of the match took his overall tally for the game to 430 runs, a figure bettered by India great Sachin Tendulkar, Test cricket’s all-time leading run-scorer, just three times in a series, let alone a match, during his celebrated career.
Following his commanding 269 in the first innings, Gill also became the first batsman in 148 years of Test history to make score of 250 and 150 in the same match.
All that came after Gill’s 147 in his first Test as captain, India’s five-wicket loss in last week’s series opener at Headingley.
But beyond the statistics, it is the way Gill has played that has impressed seasoned observers.
In the first innings at Edgbaston, he batted in near flawless-fashion for eight-and-a-half hours, with his offside driving standing comparison with cricket’s most elegant batsmen.
But in the second innings, with quick runs required to set up a declaration, Gill made 161 off just 162 balls, including 13 fours and eight sixes.
India are now well-placed given England, with seven wickets standing, still need a mammoth 536 more runs on Sunday’s final day to achieve what would be a Test record fourth-innings victory chase of 608.
“Gill is outrageous,” England fast-bowling great Stuart Broad, well used to working out world-class batsmen during a career that yielded 604 Test wickets, told Sky Sports after Saturday’s close.
“As a bowler, I’d be looking for technical things so I could expose him, but he’s not shown any obvious signs of dismissal and he’s played stylishly. He’s played with huge responsibility, under big pressure.
“It’s breathtaking... He deserves all the applause he will get.”
Gill was drafted into India’s under-19 side as for their victorious 2018 World Cup campaign, shortly after scoring a century for Punjab in just his second first-class Ranji Trophy match.
He made his one-day international debut in 2019, but it was in his first Test series, in Australia in 2020/21, that he came to the fore, notably with a fluent 91 in India’s thrilling series-clinching win at the Gabba.
His first Test hundred came a year later, in Chattogram. A month later, aged 23, he became the youngest to make an ODI double-century, smashing 208 off 149 balls against New Zealand.
Born in Fazilka, near the border with Pakistan, before moving to Mohali aged eight to be nearer better cricket facilities, the nickname ‘Prince’ has clung to Gill to the extent of sometimes appearing on his bat-stickers.
An opener and then a number three, Gill now occupies the number four position held by childhood hero Virat Kohli, with his 269 surpassing Kohli’s unbeaten 254 against South Africa in Pune in 2019 as the highest score by an India Test captain.
As a boy, Gill wanted to know what Kohli’s scores and achievements were when he was his age.
And when Kohli first saw Gill in the nets in New Zealand in 2019/20, he said he didn’t even have 10 percent of the talent when he was Gill’s age.
Yet last year, when England went 1-0 up in Hyderabad, a second-innings duck saw Gill’s Test average fall below 30 for the first time.
But then India coach Rahul Dravid, himself an outstanding batsman, resisted the temptation to drop Gill, who then made a second-innings century in a 106-run win in Visakhapatnam and another, in Dharamshala, during a series India won 4-1.
Gill succeeded Rohit Sharma as India captain after the latter announced his retirement from Test cricket in May, with ‘King’ Kohli calling time on his Test career just a few days later.
A few months ago, when asked about potential leaders, Rohit said “the boys aren’t ready yet.”
But Gill, who started this series with a modest Test average of under 36, looks as if he might be now.
