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Council Member Brewer discusses social media archiving legislation
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Council Member Gale Brewer discusses Introduction 564, which requires the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) to maintain a public database of social media posts from government accounts. She emphasizes the importance of preserving these records for historical purposes and outlines some challenges in implementing the legislation.
- Brewer highlights the need to capture and archive all government social media accounts, including those that may be deleted or transferred between administrations.
- She references her past efforts to protect DORIS from merging with another agency, underscoring her commitment to preserving government records.
- Brewer mentions the potential use of software to scrub for official social media accounts, but notes that some official accounts may not be easily identifiable.
Gale Brewer
0:26:45
Thank you very much.
0:26:47
I'm here to talk about social media, intro five six four.
0:26:52
It requires DORS to maintain a publicly accessible and searchable database online of the social media posts and websites of government officials.
0:27:01
And it requires city agencies to provide, along with officials, DORIS with a list of each social media account.
0:27:08
Some social media accounts such as NYPD chief of department on Twitter are carried over from one administration to the aisle.
0:27:17
However, others are unique to the individual like NYPD Doherty on Twitter, which was recently deleted.
0:27:24
We don't want them to be deleted.
0:27:25
All need to be captured and put in the archive forever.
0:27:29
Because of my history of supporting municipal archives, I feel strongly that such records are now part of our history and must be saved for generations.
0:27:37
As council member previously in chair of government operations, I took on mayor Bloomberg's administration when they wanted to merge Doris and Decas.
0:27:45
I enlisted the help of every archivist in New York state, and we made sure no such merger took place.
0:27:51
When mayor de Blasio took over, he undid the merger.
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The rest is history.
0:27:55
Today, Doris, under the leadership of the excellent commissioner, Pauline Toole, she understands the importance of permanent government records.
0:28:03
It's foremost in the agency's commission.
0:28:06
The way it could happen is software can scrub for all the social media accounts that are listed as official, but there are ones that are official, but that may not be as obvious.
0:28:17
And the purpose of this bill is to keep for archival interest the entire list of social media.
0:28:23
Thank you very much.