Archiving the Covid-19 pandemic

Legal and ethical considerations are very important in thinking about social media - some are consistent, but some are different for different platforms.

A major difference is between material published on public, and private accounts:

• Facebook - mostly private accounts, with more personal information shared
• Twitter - more public accounts
• YouTube, Flickr etc - audio-visual content shared that may contain copyright issues
• Instagram - public and private accounts that may contain copyright issues

Ethical considerations:

• Are social media users aware of how platforms use and share their data? What are their expectations of privacy, and are they reasonable? How do you know?
• Are users aware their social media posts might be analysed for research projects? Can they give informed consent for how their data is used?

Legal issues:

• Laws and regulations increasingly demand that organisations archive social media. However social media platforms generally want to limit and restrict how this data can be used
• Social media platforms control content created by users through their terms and conditions. Platforms change their terms and conditions often - sometimes every few months. When in doubt, consult a professional archivist

Challenges to preserving social media content:

• Lack of user awareness or informed consent about what is happening to their contributions
• Potential for fraudulent use and manipulation of social media content
• Sheer volume of data and logistics to deal with
• High chance that personal data will be on display - eg names, photographs, location etc.
• Potential for people to share opinions which they may not want to have communicated further, leading to embarrassment/distress

Possible solutions:

• Decide what type of social media content you would like to collect, and add it to your organisation's collecting policy, so you are not collecting more than you need
• If you are collecting screenshots, redact any personal information eg names, pictures or other information that may identify a person
• If you are using web archiving software, stick to published websites, or limit access to your collected social media archive. Don't publish these archive posts online without permission, but you may make them available for individual researchers for research purposes only
• Seek to gain permission from social media groups where possible eg Facebook groups, Twitter users etc.

Remember, ask an archivist if you're not sure!