Views clash on whether social media entries are records.

• Position: GOVERNMENT RECORDS - Brief article

When an outgoing administration of Montana's Office of Public Instruction's (OPI) left the premises, certain social media communications disappeared as well, according to a recent article on Missoulian.com.

The lost Twitter and Facebook accounts had been managed by former OPI Superintendent Denise Juneau and Communications Director Emilie Ritter Saunders. In an e-mail to reporters, Saunders wrote, "Once the term in office expires, the pages essentially expire." It is Saunders' view that social media is used to link constituents to public records, and its contents are not public records.

The state, however, has a different view. Montana's social media policy says that any communication to or from state personnel that uses social media is presumed to be a public record. Format, then, is not a factor; content is.

Montana lacks a centralized method for managing...