Your tweets aren’t your own: How Twitter gets paid 140 characters at a time

The updates, or tweets, written by millions of users of the micro-blogging site Twitter have been put up for sale to a British firm on Tuesday, allowing Twitter to finally monetize its massive stores of user-generated data.

A steady source of commercial interest in Twitter data comes from none other than the world’s intelligence agencies. In fact, these agencies find it cheaper to pay twitter than an amateur spy to discover their citizens’ orientations and secrets.

The transaction was concluded under a deal between Twitter and UK-based DataSift which acquired the rights to Twitter’s archives. It was reported that well over 300 million tweets are available for those interested in purchasing them.  

Tweets are no longer available to online users after a week; however, they are stored in the Twitter data center, as well as the U.S. Library of Congress, indefinitely. Even if the user deletes his tweet, it will still appear in the archives because the user’s database is separate from the website’s servers.

The most dangerous aspect of this issue is that the deal isn’t selective or discriminatory and allows whoever wishes to purchase the tweets to do so.  This fact means that the orientations, ideas and trends of the Arab World, as well as any other, can become the property of any government or private entity.