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?
In general,
If it’s only semantically plausible with reference to a given set of corpora, then it’s a hallucination.
If it’s a hallucination that satisfies an emotional need, then it has truthiness.
If it’s truthiness that is backed by a sufficiently powerful political force, then it is The Truth.
Source: it was revealed to me in a dream.