The alternative is screenshots or direct quoting, both of which are actually easier than using the api.

But they have zero proof about being real. Using the API was proof. I can make any tweet from any user, take screenshot and you can’t prove it was not real.

News site could fetch the tweet markup using the API at publication time, save it locally, and publish a static version along with the article.

Thats a lot of effort going into something that 99% of the people couldn't care less.

Exactly, so using a screenshot is in fact a good solution

Apart from the inefficiency and inaccessibility.

It'd be pretty easy to automatically implement in their publishing system, I think.

It does not provide any additional value, since that can be faked as easily as the screenshot. Any validation requires something from Twitter end-point, that they check and verify publicly that it actually existed at that time… but that does not work since we are going against removals made by Twitter in the first hand.

Did the general public start caring about news being real at some point?

Only on Internet message boards is this a live issue.

That's only an issue if you distrust a particular news source more than you distrust Twitter itself.

Now that Twitter is owned by a known bully (I don't use that word lightly), only the crappiest newspapers would fit that standard.

You're reading news sources where you think it's a serious threat that the journalists might fake a tweet? Why would you care about what any site with that low of a reputation has to say?

It may not be an issue with established, reputable news sources you're already familiar with, but it certainly could be with every other website out there.

Using the API proves nothing. You can easily fake an embedded tweet - would take the average frontend dev very little time to do from scratch.

> Smart journalists

This seems unlikely.