digital preservation

Social Media and Live Broadcast Video Records

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Facebook announced an update regarding their Live Video storage policy three weeks ago. Beginning on February 19th, any new live broadcasts can be replayed, downloaded or shared from Facebook Pages or profiles for 30 days. After 30 days, these live broadcasts will automatically be removed from Facebook. Any archived live videos older than 30 days will be removed from Facebook after 90 days. Before the deletion of these videos, Facebook will notify you via email and through the Facebook app informing you that you will have 90 days to download or transfer your live broadcast videos.

To ensure that these live video broadcasts are preserved, you will have the opportunity to download the live broadcast videos to your device, transfer them to your cloud storage, or convert them to a new reel. Facebook provides directions on the various ways to do these procedures. Updating Our Facebook Live Video Storage Policy | Meta

According to this announcement, Meta is making these changes to align with their storage policies with industry standards and to help ensure that Meta is providing the most up-to-date live video experiences for all on Facebook.

This is a concern for several reasons:

1. Social media companies control how long these potential records will be available in a social media platform.

2. Potential government agencies that use Facebook Live video broadcasts (especially during the pandemic) could lose records of the office unless they start downloading the videos now. This could result in more electronic records needing to be stored on government servers, which will increase storage space/cost money to preserve.

If you are an entity that uses Facebook live video broadcasts and has a social media archiving software program, i.e., – ArchiveSocial, research if these live broadcasts are being captured and preserved permanently. If you do not have an archiving social media software program that preserves these records, begin a plan on how your entity will start preserving these records incrementally.

The Importance of File Formats

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Managing file formats is an important topic to consider in digital preservation. In a broader context, one needs to study the application and implications of digital file formats. A full listing of recommended formats from the Library of Congress is available online. The Library of Congress’s recommended formats are based on seven sustainability factors. These include:

  • Disclosure – specifications and tools for validating the integrity and accessibility of the format exist. You can now find out how information is encoded as bits or bytes.
  • Adoption – the format is widely used. If everyone is using it, tools will be available for migration and emulation.
  • Transparency – It’s easy to analyze the format using basic tools, such as human readability. Information is not encrypted or compressed.
  • Self-Documentation – the format allows you to add metadata directly to the record. You don’t have to have a program or a database to find out what the record is.
  • External Dependencies – How much hardware or software do you need to access the format? The less specialized hardware or software you need, the better.
  • Impact of Patents – Patents could make it harder to open or migrate formats. Less of a worry with formats that are widely adopted.
  • Technical Protection Mechanisms – Formats should not be tied to a particular vendor or program. The format should be accessible regardless of the system to which it was originally uploaded.

The main content types of file formats are images, video, audio, and text. ISO compliant formats for these types of materials include:

  • PDF/A
    • Plain Text
    • XML
    • TIFF
    • JPEG2000

If you have several different file formats and versions of those formats (numerous different versions of PDF, Word, and Image formats), your digital preservation strategy should alleviate the effects of obsolescence and propagation. Strategies include file migration, emulation, normalization, and developing an institutional policy of only using certain file formats.

National Archives Resources

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The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has released a bulletin for federal agencies on managing records of collaboration platforms, such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.  Collaboration platforms can include a wide range of tools, such as chat, email, and file sharing and project management features that may have records management and retention implications.   The bulletin shares the records management considerations that agencies should keep in mind when using such a platform.  More information is available at https://records-express.blogs.archives.gov/2023/09/29/new-nara-bulletin-on-collaboration-platforms/.

Another resource offered by NARA is its Electronic Records Accessioning Support Tools.  These tools can assist in preparing records for transfer and include Junk File Finder to identify empty folders and backup files and the Funny Filename Finder, a recently added tool which can identify filenames with invalid characters.  These tools are available at https://github.com/usnationalarchives/Electronic-Records-Accessioning-Support-Tools.

Thinking about digitizing your records?  In October NARA released its Digitization Quality Management Guide to assist agencies with their quality control of digitization projects.  The guide is available at https://www.archives.gov/files/records-mgmt/policy/digitization-quality-mgmt-guide.pdf.  If considering a digitization project also don’t forget about the OhioERC’s document imaging guidance!