j-e-d / nytdiff

Code for the twitter bot nyt_diff

NYTdiff

Code for the Twitter bot @nyt_diff.

Bluesky version: @nytdiff.bsky.social

Mastodon version: @[email protected]

The phantomjs binary needs to be installed and the path updated in the run_diff.sh file.

Twitter keys and the NYT API key for the "Top Stories V2" service are needed, values of these keys need to be entered in the run_diff.sh file.

Font: Merriweather. Background pattern: Paper Fibers.

If you wish to build your version check this fork that reads RSS feeds and this project that is in part based on nyt_diff and also checks RSS feeds.

Bots with similar functionality that I am aware of (please let me know of others).

site	bot
ABC Digital	EditandoAbc
Ámbito	af_diff
AP	ap_diff
BBC	bbc_diff
Breitbart News	breitbart_diff
Calgary Herald	yyc_herald_diff
Canadaland	canadaland_diff
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation	cbc_diff
Clarín	cl_diff
CNN	cnn_diff
Cronista	cc_diff
Daily Mail	dailymail_diff
Fox News	fox_diff
Israeli News Websites	ILNewsDiff
The Globe and Mail	globemail_diff
The Guardian	guardian_diff
Infobae	ib_diff
Le Monde	lemonde_diff
La Nación	ln_diff
La Presse	lapresse_diff
La Repubblica	repubblica_diff
Le Soir	lesoir_diff
Página/12	p12_diff
Reuters	reuters_diff
RT	rt_edits
Stuff	stuff_diff
Telegraph	telegraph_diff
Todo Noticias	tn_diff
The Toronto Star	torstar_diff
Valeurs Actuelles	valeurs_diff
Wall Street Journal	wsj_diff
The Washington Post	wapo_diff
White House Blog	whitehouse_diff

Some bot accounts are currently (November 2020) suspended by Twitter and have been strikethrough.

nytdiff's Issues

Simplify Diff for Substantial Changes

For some changes in title and abstract, there are spurious similarities that make the diffs difficult to understand (for example https://twitter.com/nyt_diff/status/1353771665017221120).

Would a pull request that detected if, say, 30% or less of the original text was unchanged and replaced it with "-old-headline- new headline" be accepted?

Alt text on images

Hey, I think it would be nifty if the bot's images came with alt text describing the before-and-after for users who can't view images.

It seems you can use create_media_metadata after media_upload to achieve this. Probably, something like Before: {old}. After: {new}. is the least confusing format to provide alt text in. The limit is 1000 characters.

Initial tweet should include headline

Now that media cards don't include the headline, the first tweet in a thread should have the headline as status

Unrelated articles are being diffed into one thread

For example: https://twitter.com/nyt_diff/status/1220299864220884994

Thread goes back to 17 Jan, so I would guess that's when this started..