Tweet rot

Wikipedia reports the link rot rate of about 5% year. But link rot may affect different parts of the internet differently.

I use twitter a lot and, since I wasn’t able to find any research on tweet rot, I looked at whether the tweets I liked in the past are still available today to determine it.

Here are the results:

• 4% tweet rot rate over 1-2 months (of 204 tweets I liked 31-62 days ago, 8 are unavailable today)
• 7% tweet rot rate over 6-8 months (of 308 tweets I liked 184-245 days ago, 22 are unavailable today)
• 17% tweet rot rate over 24-26 months (of 145 tweets I liked 731-791 days ago, 25 are unavailable today)

I have a gap in my twitter archives about 1 year ago, but based on the numbers above, I would estimate that

• the tweet rot rate over 1 year is ~10%, i.e. twice as big as in the rest of the internet.

Methodology / Caveats

Methodology

• if a tweet quote-tweeted an unavailable tweet, I consider it rotten
• if a previously public account became private, I consider its tweets rotten
• if a tweet that was replying to a deleted tweet, I consider it rotten

How do I know about the tweets I liked that were deleted?

• IFTTT applet that adds liked tweets to a Google Sheet
• IFTTT applet that adds liked tweets to OneNote

Caveats

• the sample is rather small!
• different people have very different probabilities of being banned on Twitter
• it seems that people I follow seem to be especially unlikely to be banned, which probably biases my analysis downwards

Best deleted tweets I found*

*without the authors' names to protect their privacy.

Going back in time to give younger self your wisdom. Younger self is unimpressed, wants to be left alone.

— … February 02, 2017

The bare truth of science:

1. Nobody believes a computational model except the person who built it.

2. Everybody believes an experimental measurement except the person who made it.

— … June 28, 2018

Speaking truth to power essentially means being ostracized, rebuked, standing with few brave others.

If you get widely lauded for “speaking truth to power” – you are the power.

— … September 5, 2018

We are living in an era of woke capitalism in which companies pretend to care about social justice to sell products to people who pretend to hate capitalism.

— … September 6, 2018

can we build one of those insane neon chinese supercities in america. just put it in nebraska or something we got room. it can be a ‘ghost city’ at first that’s fine, rent will be cheap. we’re the richest country can we get some bad ass new cities already

politics dumb asses always say “china just built new cities to trick people into thinking they’re cool”. it worked bitch. let’s get some new cities

Moron: I love boston, because of the history and

me: I live in HyperdriveCity, Nebraska. they built it last year. it glows purple and has a subway system too logical for human minds to understand. my apt is $200/month and is on the 93rd floor of the mall.

— … April 5, 2019

My parents are wonderful people. But most of the things they taught me are essential in a low-trust/scarcity culture, and counterproductive in a high-trust/abundance culture. I had to do a lot of work to unwind these lessons, and it set me back by probably ~10-15 years.

— … May 21, 2019

I think my most contrarian belief is that not only are markets not efficient, they’re deeply Girardian, filled with the most unbelievably stupid behavior copied and replicated almost everywhere.

— … May 23, 2019

I have fifteen friends that hate their Big Tech jobs to the point of passive suicidal ideation.

But they won’t quit until they have vested all of their unvested stock.

But they get more unvested stock every year,

so they never quit and just complain to me all the time.

— … January 10, 2020

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my parents for their archiving compulsions which I inherited wholly.