Twitter will not archive tweets from former POTUS Donald Trump’s permanently suspended account.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), an independent government agency in charge of preserving and documenting historical records, is currently working on an official online archive of the ex-Apprentice host’s tweets during his time as POTUS, including the ones that ultimately resulted in the Jack Dorsey-fronted platform hitting him with a permanent suspension in early 2021.
However, as a statement included in Quint Forgey’s recent Politico report made clear, content from the @realDonaldTrump account “will not appear on Twitter” in standard or archival form.
“Given that we permanently suspended @realDonaldTrump, the content from the account will not appear on Twitter as it did previously or as archived administration accounts do currently, regardless of how NARA decides to display the data it has preserved,” a Twitter spokesperson told the publication. “Administration accounts that are archived on the service are accounts that were not in violation of the Twitter Rules.”
For now, archivists are now working toward the possibility of having Trump’s tweets available as a download via the official Trump Presidential Library site.
Reached for comment by Complex, a Twitter spokesperson confirmed that content from the suspended Trump will not appear on the site as other archived administration accounts do currently:
“I can confirm that our teams have been working with NARA on the preservation of Tweets from @realDonaldTrump, as is standard with any administration transition and as we’ve done previously. We have a long-standing, collaborative partnership with NARA on a number of issues, including to preserve records in accordance with appropriate laws.
And below, see the full statement released by the National Archives Public and Media Communications (NARA) this week:
“Twitter is solely responsible for the decision of what content is available on their platform. NARA works closely with Twitter and other social media platforms to maintain archived social accounts from each presidential administration, but ultimately the platform owners can decline to host these accounts. NARA preserves platform independent copies of social media records and is working to make that content available to the public.”
On Jan. 8 of this year, Twitter announced the permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account due to “the risk of further incitement of violence” following the fatal Capitol riot.
Among the tweets specifically highlighted by Twitter as contributing to the permanent suspension decision was one in which Trump said he would not be attending Biden’s inauguration, which was interpreted as a signal to “those potentially considering violent acts” that the site of the inauguration festivities would be a “safe target.”
