Tweet doesn't appear on user timeline (probably promoted tweet?)

[dankimche]

Hello,

I have a question about two tweets that I found for threeUK:

Three UK (ThreeUK)

Three UK (ThreeUK)

These tweets are almost similar, only differences are:

• created date
• id
• source (which is “Twitter Ads” for 437261173797302272)
• scopes (which shows “followers: false” for 437261173797302272)

My question are:

1. Why does tweet 437261173797302272 doesn’t appear on threeUK timeline?
2. Is 437261173797302272 a promoted tweet?
3. Should I consider all tweets with source “Twitter Ads” as promoted tweets?
4. Does all promoted tweets have “Twitter Ads” as source or is there other sources for promoted tweets?

Many thanks,
Dan

[vincentisambart]

If you look at the JSON for 437261173797302272, you’ll see “scopes”:{“followers”:false}, meaning that it’s what is called a promoted-only tweet.
To know if it’s a promoted-only tweet you should not rely on the source but on the tweet having a “scopes” field or not.

[dankimche]

@vincentisambart
Hi Vincent,

Thank you very much for this useful answer.

I have other questions:

1. To catch all promoted tweets (promoted only + regular tweets promoted), can I rely on source?
2. Is there other sources for promoted tweets than “Twitter Ads”? (for example, “Twitter Ads API” or else)?

Thank you very much!
Dan

Bonjour Vincent,

Tout d’abord, merci pour cette réponse.

Par contre, je voudrais savoir s’il est aussi possible de se baser sur le “source” pour déterminer si le tweet est sponsorisé (qu’il s’agisse d’un dark tweet ou d’un tweet de la timeline sponsorisé)?
Si oui, est ce que tous les tweets sponsorisés ont pour source “Twitter Ads” ou est ce qu’il en existe d’autre et s’il y a une liste exhaustive (par exemple, “Twitter Ads API” ou autre)

Merci d’avance,
Dan

[vincentisambart]

I’m pretty sure there are promoted tweets with other sources, and an app posting promoted-only tweets can also be posting normal tweets.
Explaining why you would want to identify promoted tweets might help me better answer your questions.

[dankimche]

@vincentisambart
Hi Vincent,

Actually, I am developping a tool that shows account activities on Twitter and other social networks.

Doing so, I am showing tweets retrieved via streaming api and wanted to show the information that a tweet is a promoted tweet or not, and if this tweet is a timeline tweet or a dark tweet.

Many thanks,
Dan