Why is the journalistic standard to embed tweets (xeets?) instead of using screenshots?

An embedded tweet can be deleted, and depends on X supporting the functionality. If editing is ever introduced on the platform, it would permanently break all past articles that don’t have an independent record of the tweet (such as a full quote in the article or a screenshot). X can potentially (and maybe does) embed tracking features.

It seems like there are a lot of good reasons not to use embedded tweets, but almost every news source does it this way. Is there a good reason why?

  • Jeena@jemmy.jeena.net
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    1 year ago

    As far as I remember it’s part of Xitters Terms and Conditions that if you want to show a tweet you need to embed it, otherwise you’re stealing it.

    And for Xitter it’s great, they still can change or delete it, they run javascript on the news page to get all your information, etc.