10 things to know about preserving social media.

• Author: Madhava, Rakesh

Governments, corporations, and organizations of every kind are adopting Internet-based technologies that radically impact the most essential of human activities--the act of communicating with one another. Internet channels are many and varied, but in total, the purview of any organization communicating with internal and external audiences must include not only websites, but also blogs, video outlets, and social media efforts--most notably Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, not to mention rapidly evolving geo-located services, such as Groupon, Foursquare, and Yelp. Employing a "website only" online presence has become antiquated as quickly as having a website became a necessity.

While most organizations have repeatable processes in place for preserving e-mail and other types of electronically stored information place to preserve, archive (securely maintain in an indexed and searchable database), and research social media. Undoubtedly, failing to capture and preserve social media activities risks violating any number of compliance, regulatory, and legal requirements, and in particular, it leaves organizations woefully unprepared for producing social media data during e-discovery.

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Saciai MBdia Content's Role in Litigation

The courts are beginning to catch up with the deluge of social media, and judges are displaying less patience with organizations that haven't properly managed their archives. In one case, Arteria Prop. Pty Ltd. v. Universal Funding V.T.O., Inc., the judge ruled in no uncertain terms, "This court sees no reason to treat websites differently than other electronic files."

In that particular case, negotiations for a loan had collapsed, and the plaintiff asked for paper copies or "snapshots" of the defendants' website as it looked at the time of the negotiations. When the defendants could not produce copies in any format, the plaintiff claimed spoliation. The judge found in favor of the plaintiff, ruling that "... the Court finds that Defendants still had the ultimate authority, and thus control, to add, delete, or modify the website's content. There is no evidence to the contrary."

And, in a sign of the rapidly emerging landscape, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers released a study in 2010 indicating that 81% of its 1,600 members had seen an increase in the number of cases that had relied on information taken from social networks in the previous five years.

It's Time to Act!

As more organizations and their employees begin to use social media, and more types of social media develop, the time to act is now. As daunting as the task may seem today, it will only become increasingly difficult. Using their substantial knowledge about preserving electronic records as a base, organizations should be able to build a strategy for preserving social media, taking these 10 issues into consideration.

1. Organizations need to use social media.

   From the point of view of records managers and the legal department, it would certainly be easier to simply ban social media like Twitter and Facebook. But ignoring the enthusiastic embrace of social media by millions of people is simply not a realistic approach, and marketing departments and salespeople will most certainly be clamoring in opposition of any such ban. One only needs to look at the failed efforts of dictatorial regimes to shut down social media activities in their own countries for proof of the inevitable failure of a ban.

   Much like e-mail, social...