Twitter and Timezones
13 2015-08-28 by thinkmorebetterer
So sometimes you guys seem to get a little worked out about Twitter timestamps... I figured I'd post this little guide to help you figure out when a tweet was actually sent.
13 2015-08-28 by thinkmorebetterer
So sometimes you guys seem to get a little worked out about Twitter timestamps... I figured I'd post this little guide to help you figure out when a tweet was actually sent.
28 comments
4 felonymous1 2015-08-28
Helpful, but just calculates the hours, not the minutes as all US time zones only change in hourly increments.
So, in a eastcoast-westcoast/ west coast-eastcoast scenario 6:00am=9:00am/9:00am = 6:00am.
Now since the tweets in question took place in Virginia it is east coast time. So if there is a timezone variation,And i not read anything stating that there shoud be one, other then people that there was one, it would work like this.
He sent a tweet at 9:00 est, but it was confused for pst and it showed it being posted at 6:00. Why was there a timezone variation? Gremlins in the server.
There is no reason for a post sent at 9:00am est to show up as 5:48am pst.
Our timezones dont change by they minutes. Only by 1 hour increments, forward or back. So seeing an inaccuracy in the minutes shouldnt have anything to do with time zones, when there is no indication the husband was in a different one. If i missed it then ok. But even if he was in a different time zone, i dont think it adequately explains the inacccuracies in the minutes.
2 thinkmorebetterer 2015-08-28
I'm not sure I understand?
The timestamp is the exact time, to the second, that the tweet was received by Twitter's servers.
That tweet just happened to be on a whole hour.
1 felonymous1 2015-08-28
Sorry, I was thinking about he bf‘s post. It appeared to be sent12 minutes before it happened.
It was posted in an earlier link.
3 thinkmorebetterer 2015-08-28
Ah, right.
Let's test my technique on it then...
Here is the tweet in question. And, indeed, if I look at it from my VPN end-point that is ostensibly in the US East Coast I see a 6:31am time on the tweet.
So we'll view source, find the "data-time" which is 1440595878 and then ask Wolfram Alpha what time that is in Virginia... And, lo and behold, it's 9:31:18 am - three hours after the event took place.
1 WolframAlpha-Bot 2015-08-28
Input interpretation
Image
Result
Image
Time difference from now (5:16:13 am EDT)
Image
Time offset from PDT
Image
Clocks
Image
Delete (comment author only) | About | Report a Bug | Created and maintained by /u/JakeLane
1 thegr8rambino13 2015-08-28
So people have to use a online timezone converter to figure out what time a tweet was actually sent? Seems like a lot of work when twitter could just put a timezone indicator for each tweet, like 6:31AM EST or something
3 thinkmorebetterer 2015-08-28
No disagreement from me - I've no idea why they don't just stick a timezone indicator on it.
As a general rule timestamps on the internet are rife with issues though - so if something looks weird because of a timestamp then you need to look a lot deeper if you want to rely on it.
1 felonymous1 2015-08-28
Very accurate analysis. Well put together.
However, it did what i thought it would/should to. It basically only changed the hours.
the tweets i am talking about was the boyfriends tweets that had the minutes changed. I didnt link them because they are everywhere. But if you see them, disregarding the discrepancy in hours, there is still a 12 minute discrepency.
Basically, what they show is your example but minus 12 minutes.
Ex. In your example 9:31 = 6:31:18. Thats fine. What would you think is in your example you got 9:31 = 6:19:20?
Would you think a time zone discrepancy would adequately explain that?
1 thinkmorebetterer 2015-08-28
It wouldn't. The UTC time is the time the tweet was received by Twitter regardless of anyone's timezone.
I don't think I've seen any examples of what you're talking about? What tweets had the minutes out?
1 Ndafed1776 2015-08-28
I live in VA. I checked his tweet. It was the correct time.
1 felonymous1 2015-08-28
Can you post a pic so this can be put to rest? Because all the ones i have seen show a 12 minute variation that isnt easily explainable.
1 Ndafed1776 2015-08-28
http://m.imgur.com/oFwWTN6
1 felonymous1 2015-08-28
http://imgur.com/e2gzWzy
Can you see where my questions are coming from? Without just saying, its a time zone discrepancy. Can you explain the discrepancy?
If you look, the time stamp from the live feed says 6:46, his tweet says, 6:34.
Taking into acount that he might have been in a different time zone, nothing indicates that. How would you accout his post appearing to have been made 12mins before the shooting occured. Its not, simply saying, oh he was in another timezone. What timezone? Where was he? Because even if he was in a different one, like your experiment showed, only the hour would be altered and not the minutes.
Also, why is there even the possibilty he was in a different zone? Where did that come from? He also tweeted, they just moved in together. Was he at home, work?
So being that in all likely hood, he was in the same time zone, but lets say for a second he wasn‘t, the time zone glitch doesnt acount for the anomolous timestamps.
Lets just say twitter thought he was in another country, again, it would be off by relatively whole increments. Meaning 30 mins off, 1:30 mins off. Either forwad in time or backwards in time, not a random 12 minutes off.
So im not leaning one way or another. what im saying is that, no, just saying he was in a different timezone doesnt dimiss that descrepancy in time.
1 Ndafed1776 2015-08-28
This image at the top was photoshoped
1 felonymous1 2015-08-28
Yeah, possibilty.
What makes you say that?
1 Ndafed1776 2015-08-28
The site that posted it is very scandalous. Now if someone on here sends me a pic of their actual twitter like I did that matched this one I'll believe it but nobody has. Everyone uses this same pic. Is something very strange about this shooting. Absolutly but we are all looking at the wrong place. Now him posting on twitter 3 hours after his fiancee was killed seems weird to me. I don't think my first thought would be to start posting on twitter.
1 felonymous1 2015-08-28
Where do you think is a better place to look?
1 Ndafed1776 2015-08-28
We need actual users you trust to post their twitter screen shots. If everyone looks like mine then there is no conspiracy.
1 felonymous1 2015-08-28
Ill look on twitter, did they pull his tweets down.
1 Ndafed1776 2015-08-28
No. This is from her fiancee. Not the shooter. The full name should be in my pic.
1 Ndafed1776 2015-08-28
What is interesting is after the Charleston shooting it came out that the shooter was on Soboxone which is a drug central to the show Mr Robot then they had to reschedule the finale of Mr Robot because it was too close to the events of the VA shooting.
1 felonymous1 2015-08-28
Ok, now i will say, that i am not a digital junkie. Meaning, i have digital skills, but not on everything that is on a digital wave length.
Edit. Sonobox1? I have never heard of mr robot? Never saw show.
Edit 2. Ok re-read it again. Wasnt so bad but, didnt get the main reference points as listed above.
1 thinkmorebetterer 2015-08-28
It wasn't sent 12 minutes before the shooting. It was posted 2 hours and 48 minutes after the shooting.
1 AlwaysTurning 2015-08-28
So can you do the tweet that everyone actually cared about? I don't have a desktop.
1 thinkmorebetterer 2015-08-28
The "6:31am" one from Chris Hurst, the stations anchor and her boyfriend? It's here. Surprise, surprise, it was sent at 9:31am EST.
1 felonymous1 2015-08-28
Odd, i just looked. The initial tweet his very first tweet that is causing all the comotion is gone.
It isnt in his TL anymore. I can find all of the successive ones, but not that initial one.
Also, i just saw he was asking people to donate to her scholarship fund.
Omg.
1 thinkmorebetterer 2015-08-28
The "6:31am" tweet? It's still there.
1 felonymous1 2015-08-28
Yes.
1 Ndafed1776 2015-08-28
The site that posted it is very scandalous. Now if someone on here sends me a pic of their actual twitter like I did that matched this one I'll believe it but nobody has. Everyone uses this same pic. Is something very strange about this shooting. Absolutly but we are all looking at the wrong place. Now him posting on twitter 3 hours after his fiancee was killed seems weird to me. I don't think my first thought would be to start posting on twitter.