Community Archive Privacy Policy
We are committed to preserving the public history of Twitter conversations while respecting your privacy. This policy outlines how we handle your data and the options available to you.
Data Collection Methods
We collect Twitter/X data through two methods:
1. Twitter Archive Upload
You can upload your complete Twitter archive file. The information we collect includes:
- Profile information
- Tweets
- Likes
- Followers/following lists
2. Browser Extension (Real-time Streaming)
With your explicit consent, our browser extension can automatically collect your public tweets in real-time. This includes:
- Public tweets as they are posted
- Tweet metadata (timestamps, engagement metrics)
- Media URLs and attachments
- Reply chains and quote tweets
Important: The browser extension only works with users who have explicitly opted in to tweet streaming. You maintain full control and can opt out at any time through this website.
What We Do Not Collect
Regardless of the method, we never access:
- Direct messages
- Email addresses
- Private account data
- Protected tweets
- Personal information beyond what's publicly visible
Public Database and API
By default, your uploaded archive becomes part of our public database and API. This means:
- Your tweets and likes will be visible to anyone.
- Researchers, developers, and other users can access and analyze this data.
- This data may be used for various purposes, including digital anthropology research and fine-tuning language models.
API docs & instructions for downloading the data are in the GitHub repo.
Important Considerations
- Data Accessibility: While your tweets are already public on Twitter, our platform makes them more easily accessible to a wider audience.
- Potential Risks: Be aware that malicious actors could potentially use this data in various ways, such as making inferences about your psychology or for targeted phishing attempts, among other potential risks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do we stream every single tweet?
No. We have a temporary policy, and one we're aiming to adopt eventually.
The policy we're currently running: streaming tweets from people who've been mentioned in the community archive.
The policy we're moving towards: only streaming tweets written by people who have explicitly opted in.
The reasoning for this is that streaming only opted-in users would severely affect utility at the beginning, as this would be very few tweets.
Will the stream be exhaustive?
The stream won't be exhaustive because it only knows about tweets if an extension user has seen them.
Will others know what my feed looks like?
No. We keep the ids of scrapers so we can detect and remove bad actors but these are not public.
Browser Extension: How It Works
Our browser extension is designed with privacy and consent as core principles:
- Explicit Opt-In Required: The extension only collects tweets from users who have explicitly opted in through this website after signing in with Twitter.
- Public API Check: Before collecting any tweet, the extension checks our public API to verify the user has opted in and their consent is current.
- Real-time Collection: When you post a public tweet, users with the extension installed can automatically save it to the Community Archive.
- Distributed Preservation: This creates a distributed network of tweet preservation, helping maintain historical records even if tweets are later deleted.
Privacy Options
We offer several options to give you more control over your data:
- Tweet Streaming Opt-In/Opt-Out: You can enable or disable real-time tweet collection through the extension at any time via your account settings.
- Exclude Likes: You can opt to leave out your likes when uploading your archive.
- Date Filtering: You can choose to make only a specific date range of your archive public.
- Manual Deletion: We are planning to implement the ability to delete specific tweets from the archive, but this feature is not yet active.
- Future Controls: We plan to implement more granular permission settings in the future, such as allowing access to mutuals or specific individuals.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns about our data policy, please don't hesitate to contact us.
You can reach out to us on Twitter at @exgenesis. Or find us on Discord or GitHub
By using the Community Archive, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to this privacy policy.
For more detailed information on the specific data fields processed from your Twitter archive, including examples, please see our documentation: Twitter Archive Data Details.