The line of communication between government and citizen is expanding with the recent emergence of social media. The 2012 presidential election was a testament to this, with Twitter playing a significant role in both democratic and republican campaigns. With websites like Facebook and Twitter becoming significant platforms for government communication, there becomes a need for these transactions to be officially recorded in order to comply with freedom of information and public record laws. With this in mind, the state of North Carolina has taken the first shot at a solution with the launch of their Social Media Archive.
North Carolina’s cutting edge Social Media Archive is interactive in nature and can be viewed by the public athttp://nc.gov.archivesocial.com. The site contains over 55,000 public records of Facebook and Twitter communications from state agencies across North Carolina. The site is currently in beta phase with a few select agencies, but the official launch plans to include over 130 agency social media sites. North Carolina’s Head of Electronic Records is excited about the launch and stated, “For the first time ever, we can capture the full context of social media as it happens, and make the records almost instantly available to the general public.” It’s also worth mentioning that the archive is able to store the data in its native format. For instance visitors will be able to explore Twitter hash tags, view Facebook posts with accompanying comments, and much more. This feature of the archive is important when considering how you will make sense of the posts years later. The archived data will be preserved in legally sound format allowing for the information to be available as legal evidence in the future.
The days of social media being a carefree method of keeping in touch with friends is over. It has become an integral part of society and government communication. This rapid adoption has caused every level of government to question how to deal with record retention of social media. The implementation of a Social Media Archive by the State of North Carolina has provided a template for the rest of government for retaining social media records. While the main focus of the archive is to keep government communication transparent and comply with records laws, the archive also provides a good way of historically preserving the way in which citizens interact with our government.
