Examining Social Media Policy and Records Management in Massachusetts Municipal Governments

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper reports on an exploratory analysis of the social media policies of municipal governments in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. With a strong Public Records law and language clearly indicating that social media posts are government records, Massachusetts provides a framing for research into municipal policy on social media use, retention, preservation, and access. Of the 351 municipalities in the Commonwealth, just 87 have publicly accessible Social Media policies. These policies indicate that municipal governments take their responsibilities around social media records management seriously, they do not offer many specifics around how they will engage directly with posts from privately‐owned social media platforms. Implications of these findings suggest that the digital preservation community must continue to develop tools and methods to preserve social media records the support broader efforts around government transparency and accountability, as well as advocate for platforms to include features to support responsible public sector social media use.