Preserving social media... for the future!

[Esper]

Books eventually led to libraries, movies to film archives, but what about social media?

Increasingly, things are being put up on social media platforms and nowhere else. When those platforms change, or cease operation, or when someone deletes a post, what happens to all that information? How can it be preserved for the future? Or should it be preserved? What of it should be kept and what forgotten? There is so much data being created every moment on social media it doesn't seem possible that we can keep all of it forever so what should we do?

 

[Sektor]

I believe that it should not be archived. Twitter and Facebook are not the same as books I feel. Anyone posting what they ate for dinner is not something that interests most people I imagine. Select events and changes, discoveries and advancements should be archived, but people's personal lives don't matter much in the long run. Drop it from the catalog I think.

 

[Esper]

I believe that it should not be archived. Twitter and Facebook are not the same as books I feel. Anyone posting what they ate for dinner is not something that interests most people I imagine. Select events and changes, discoveries and advancements should be archived, but people's personal lives don't matter much in the long run. Drop it from the catalog I think.

Okay, but counter argument: What if someone later becomes famous or otherwise important to society/history? (Imagine Anne Frank livetweeting instead of keeping a diary.) Or on a smaller scale, what if there's evidence of harassment or other behavior in a divorce case or other legal dispute?

 

[0]

Still irrelevant to that persons place in history. Yes, we know the emperor of Rome ate grapes and olives, but we don't need to know his every meal. Strategies and tactics, or other acts that effect his people? Sure. But we don't need to know his whole life story, and such is the same with Anne Frank.


That harassment and other behavior is personal, and is up to the couple to deal with. The biggest problem I find with social media is people think others care about every little thing they do. Why archive that?


As JD said, archive certain, unbiased parts of history. Civil war just started? Archive the news story and a couple of hundred reactions to it.

 

[Somewhere_]

I agree with Esper. I think social media posts should be archived, but who will do it? I just dont see a demand for it or why a company like Twitter or Facebook would even be interested in doing it.