A History of Image Sharing and Removal on Twitter

• In Event: Digital Platforms, Freedom of Speech, and Power

Abstract

This paper introduces and analyzes a dataset of 1.5 billion images downloaded from more than 17 billion geolocated tweets from autumn 2013 through spring 2023. The dataset tracks by country-day the number of tweets, tweets with images, and images still available for download after a tweet's publication. The dataset enables an analysis of differences in image sharing over time and across countries. The dataset also enables an analysis of differences in content removal over time and across countries. Initial results suggest that image removal occurs within days of a tweet's publication, and image availability eventually reaches a steady state of 54% of images after 6 months. This average masks substantial variability across countries: countries with greater freedom of discussion have more images still available while those with greater censorship, offline and online, have a lower percentage of images still available. Finally, specific reasons images are no longer available, such as accounts going private or tweets being deleted, are analyzed.

Author

• Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld, University of California, Los Angeles