Should communicators who are bound by FOIA avoid Snapchat?
While disappearing communiqués are all the rage among young audiences, public institutions targeting these demographics should heed the letter of the law.
If your organization is governed by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a disappearing message might be a bad idea.
Ephemeral communication—meaning communication lasting for a short time (i.e. Snapchat or Instagram “Stories”)—is becoming more and more common. People, particularly younger demographics, love the idea of sending messages and content that disappears after a day or less. In fact, teenagers prefer Snapchat over Facebook, Instagram and Twitter combined.
If your organization wants teenagers to engage, such as a university perhaps, you might be rushing to sign up for a Snapchat profile if you don’t already have one. However, at least for public institutions, there’s just one pesky problem—FOIA.
All public institutions subject to FOIA are required by law to keep records of all social media activity, including posts, third-party comments, meta data and deleted posts. If that alone is news to you, a perusal of this social media FOIA primer might be in order.
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