Conference Agenda

General abstract

For government organisations, the use of social media platforms are a great way to get in direct contact with civilians. For example, local organisations can use social media to ask direct input from the people on new initiatives regarding the environment in their municipality, and national ministries can highlight new policies and regulations. However, archiving social media after we have used it, is a totally different story. We understand the need to archive the material, the legal basis national archives have to do so, and the limitations as we do not own the platforms, but how does that work in practice?

During this panel national archives and libraries from all over the world will share their experiences with safeguarding this public discourse on social media for the long term. The panel will explain their own situation and touch upon relevant legislation from their country briefly. Furthermore, during an interactive panel discussion, the panelists will touch upon topics such as best and worst practices, user experiences, accessibility, the ongoing debate to include or exclude comments and direct messages, how to handle donated material, long-term preservation, and in which file formats social media is archived in. Questions and use cases from the audience are very much appreciated.

Short abstract per institution

Organisation 1

At [organisation], we are not responsible for archiving social media on behalf of the entire [country] government. Each government organisation is responsible for managing its own social media archives. However, all currently active government social media accounts have been designated as information that must be permanently preserved. This means their archives will eventually be transferred to [organisation] within the next 10 to 20 years. To support this process, [organisation] has developed guidelines for archiving social media and is actively contributing to the creation of a government-wide policy. We have also defined the essential properties of social media archives that must be safeguarded to ensure their long-term preservation.

National Library of SIngapore

With the growing significance and usage of social media, the National Library of Singapore (NLS) developed and included this new format as part of our collection policy in 2024. The policy covers both private organisations/individuals, as well as government accounts. Working closely with the National Archives of Singapore, it was made mandatory for government agencies to transfer their social media accounts to the NLS. NLS is currently archiving Singapore's political office holders’ social media accounts, with plans to collect government agencies’ accounts in the near future. Our future plans also include ingesting the social media collection into NLS' digital preservation system and exploring access ideas.

Organisation 3

[organisation] is archiving [country] Government social media at scale, using automated harvesting methods. This activity is supported by the Public Records Act 1958 which defines public records broadly as ‘not only written records, but records conveying information by any means whatsoever’ - so including social media. Currently, we are harvesting a limited number of platforms and we are exploring ways to expand our coverage, including direct transfer of accounts. Archived material is publicly accessible via our Social Media Archive.

Organisation 4 - TBC

[organisation] collects social media in the context of thematic and/or curated research and data collections. [country] legislation recognizes the Internet as published (subject to Legal Deposit) and therefore the material is not archival. This means that [organisation] does not collect the web or social media of federal departments as formal archival records. However, as a published supplement to a formal archival fonds, [organisation] does accept important federal and non-federal social media data exports on a case-by-case basis.

How to archive social media remains one of the most frequently asked questions, and sometimes one of the biggest challenges, in web archiving. Social media platforms are vast and quickly evolving, while web archiving tools are always playing catch up. Can web archiving tools be used to archive social media at high fidelity, i.e. accurately to their users’ experience? What makes archiving social media so difficult, and what are the key aspects of web archiving that apply to social media?

This talk will share some of our experience in the field, as well as the latest state of the art (which sometimes changes daily). We’ll cover the major platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and LinkedIn, their current state, and how archiving some of these platforms has changed over the years. We’ll discuss browser profiles and paywalls, challenges of session information and rate limiting, custom behaviors, and how all of these factors affect capture and replay.

We’ll discuss what has consistently worked and why, and what hasn’t, what requires more work and maintenance, and what trade-offs may be necessary. We’ll also provide a real world use case of social media archiving workflows that others could perhaps use.

The presentation will discuss how we've approached social media archiving across key open source tools, including Browsertrix/Browsertrix Crawler, ArchiveWeb.page, and ReplayWeb.page.

We hope to end with a discussion on the subject of how to make social media archiving a sustainable practice within the web archiving field, and what can be done collaboratively for the benefit of all.