Can I delete a tweet or permanently scrub a post to my Facebook Wall? Victorian government employees are being advised to contact their records management staff before sending their latest social media interactions to the recycle bin.

A new publication exploring the “Recordkeeping Implications of Social Media” has been published by the Public Record Office Victoria, as it sets out to develop an official policy on the topic.

When does social media utterance become something that a government must keep a record of?

PROV offers a broad definition of makes a social media post something that must be kept a public record, from “a comment on a blog post, or a reply to a tweet.“ Even clicking that you “Like” a FaceBoook post could potentially come under this umbrella, according to PROV.

While PROV notes that new technologies are expected to eventually offer better solutions, “Currently printing screenshots to .pdf and registering the resulting document in an Electronic Document and Record Management System (EDRMS) to record the necessary metadata is the most accessible and expedient method of creating social media records.

“If an EDRMS is not available, printing to file with the above metadata attached is an alternative.

“New technologies to capture social media records may be developed in the future. Any automated process for capturing social media records must be able to store the metadata required to contextualise the message appropriately. The metadata must communicate the relationship between the record, the context that the social media was used in (e.g. a statement or a reply), and any other related documents that help make the social media usage understandable. “

The Issues Paper has been posted online at www.prov.vic.gov.au and feedback is being requested untl 20 April 2012. Email Emily Swan at emily.swann@prov.vic.gov.au