Should govts archive social media posts?

Friday, 3 September 2010

Central Government, Policy

By Robin Hicks | 9 February 2010

It is fashionable for government agencies to have a Facebook or Twitter account these days. But should tweets and status updates be backed up to leave a digital trail for transparency’s sake? Not all policymakers have made their minds up, as perspectives from the United States, Europe and Asia reveal in interviews with FutureGov.

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In the US, emails and voicemails are considered public records under the Freedom of Information Act, so archiving them is mandatory. Should social media postings be archived too, US government officials are wondering? And if so, how?

In anticipation of legislation on social media governance, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) has been experimenting with a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook called TwInbox that archives Twitter posts. “Our social media team is still in the process of defining our social media governance, policies and guidelines. In the future, we may recommend an agency-wide tool for authorised employees to use,” said April Edmonds, a Web Technology Analyst at FWC.

In Hong Kong, there are concrete policies and procedures for information management, retention and archival which include the use of internet services by civil servants for official business, Victor Lam (pictured), Assistant Government Chief Information Officer, Government of Hong Kong, explained to FutureGov. “These policies and procedures will be followed irrespective of the media and application in which the information is placed,” he said.

The story is similar in New Zealand. Channa Jayasinha is the Chief Information Officer for the Ministry of Fisheries, and formerly Chief Technology Officer at the Ministry of Economic Development (MED). He said that any social media postings will become an “official record” if the site is hosted by a public sector agency, using the MED as an example of a heavy user of online social platforms to connect with the public.

“The need to archive social media postings will be no different to using Instant Messaging,” said Jayasinha. “The thread of content will need to be tracked, backed up, stored securely and archived according to Public Records Act (PRA) guidelines. It will be treated like any other electronic content.”

In the Netherlands, rules and regulations for social media governance have yet to be decided, Matt Poelmans, the Director of Citizenlink for the Dutch Ministry of the Interior, told FutureGov. “We do not yet have conclusive answers. For this very reason, we have launched a social network called Civil Servant 2.0. Some 2000 Dutch civil servants from all tiers of government keep one another informed about their social media activities, to share views and discuss opportunities and challenges.”

One of the aims of Civil Servant 2.0 is to develop social media policy and governance. Poelmans explained. “Social network postings are by default open and are not official views. So transparency and archiving have not got special attention yet. Other issues do, however, such as access and the scope of civil servants to freely communicate their opinions. The current approach is learning by doing.”

The Dutch Council of Government Communication Officers (GCCO) recently drafted guidelines for civil servants on how to use social media. Archiving posts was suggested - but not mandated - in a directive labeled ‘awareness and preparation’. “Civil servants need to make a deliberate choice whether or not to engage, take people seriously and archive posts,” Poelmans said.

Among the other three social media directives, Dutch government officials are expected to “behave like civil servants – be impartial, trustworthy and prudent,” Poelmans added. “Existing rights and obligations apply, so freedom of speech allows for criticism, but this is limited if you disagree on topics close to your own field of competence.”

The fourth objective was for civil servants to make the distinction between personal views and public policy, “even though this is not easy”, Poelmans noted.

So will the need to archive tweets and posts affect what and how civil servants communicate with the public? New Zealand’s Jayasinha doesn’t think so.

“Civil servants will need to apply the same disciplines as they do when they respond to other media requests,” he said. “What they post on a public sector hosted site they will have to be disciplined and work under the code of conduct of that organisation. However, when they use social media out of the office on personal sites they should be able to express personal opinions.”

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5 Comments

On 9 February 2010 Chad Bockius wrote:

Great article. This is a hot topic in the United States. Melinda Catapano, city records manager for Grand Junction, Colorado, points out in a recent article that “if social networking is connected to official agency work, you better be able to produce that record.” But aren’t these consumer sites, just used for personal use? The answer is it depends. While the lines are blurring between personal and professional use on these sites one thing is clear. If you are using them to communicate agency work you can be assured that it is going to be governed by the same set of principles that govern other communications.

In fact, Wisconsin Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen recently issued an opinion in which he states that electronic communications made by elected officials are public records, even when they are posted on social networking sites. Van Hollen states that the Wisconsin Public Records laws applies whenever the content is connected to the official’s purpose or function.

As it happens archiving social networking data is not a simple task. And often times CIO’s want more than just simple archiving. They may want to limit access to parts of social networking sites (i.e., block video viewing, games, photos, etc). In addition, you need to be able to produce the information quickly. So archiving is the first step but you also need to address discovery. This just scratches the surface of the requirements you should consider.

If you’ve already engaged on social networks or are considering taking that step I’d encourage you to take a look at this solution (http://bit.l…) to make sure you comply with your agency and government policies.

On 10 February 2010 Nathanael Boehm wrote:

If the whole point of record-keeping is to have an authoritative source to refer to if a dispute arises (and that is the whole point of record-keeping is it not?) then yes, why not keep copies of your tweets and Facebook status updates including all interactions ie tweets directed at you and user's comments posted on your Wall.

Doesn't make sense to have an incomplete paper trail.

However if the need is to refer to those comments in future then if the provide already has an appropriate archiving system that should be ok. In which case you wouldn't need to backup Facebook but you would need to backup your tweets because Twitter only keeps a week-and-a-half of messages.

Then you need to figure out how to store them in a way that makes them easily accessible - which in the case of tweets means somehow piecing together conversations; difficult if multiple people were involved and the conversation wove in and out; where exactly did it start and end …

On 12 February 2010 Adam Bullock wrote:

Timely article and great discussion!

On the rules and regulations side, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) state that organizations must manage their electronically stored information (ESI) so that it can be produced in a timely and complete manner when necessary, such as during legal proceedings. Tweets, for example, can present a minefield of legal hazards surrounding intellectual property, privacy, defamation, etc., not to mention challenges for your human resources department.

In addition, the recent Regulatory Notice 10-06 from FINRA helped guide financial firms on their responsibility to archive social media postings. You can check out their official notice here:

http://www.finra.org/Industry/Regulation/Notices/2010/P120760

But is just archiving tweets, posts on Facebook, and status updates on LinkedIn enough? To echo the FRCP one more time, ESI needs to be produced in a timely and complete manner when necessary and that includes social media postings. That's what makes Smarsh Social Media Archiving a great tool - using our service not only allows you to monitor your company's Twitter usage and enforce internal governance policy, but the ability to produce tweets on-demand.

http://bit.ly/SocialMediaArchiving

Why does your organization need to archive its tweets? To satisfy regulatory obligations, legal protection, risk & reputation management, as well as an efficient way to monitor and enforce policy.

On 21 April 2010 Doubleneck Dan wrote:

I don't know about all that, aready there is too much information being collected by various companies and governments on individuals, where does it all end?

On 26 August 2010 History Essays wrote:

Yes, the question is how are they going to go about this proposal. And would this really benefit the future? If this becomes implemented it would mean every status anyone has made on any social media site, from the mundane to the profound, would be archived. How much of use could we get from some 13-year-old girl's gushing wall post to her boyfriend?