The rising use of social media as a source of news not only provides historians with greater evidence of how widely an event is or was known about, but also a wider range of accounts and commentaries. These broader accounts allow for greater analysis of an event, it’s causes and it’s affects. However, the use of social media, by many, to express private thoughts and beliefs may make historians cautious of using it as a source, particularly for biographical texts as exposing these public posts containing private thoughts may not necessarily suit the public image of the subject.
There are questions over how reliable a source social media can be, while in some respects public posts on sites such as Twitter and Facebook are voluntary and not asked for, unlike diaries submitted to Mass Observation, it could be suggested that in the furore around movements such as #Metoo or that surrounding Netflix’s Insatiable, people feel pressured to share their experience or give their opinions. While in many instances this is a good thing, #Metoo created solidarity for many people, but there is a question as to just how influenced by seeing similar posts people are. This might call into question the reliability of social media posts since their creation may have been influenced by the snowballing movement. It could, however, be suggested that, particularly for Twitter posts, the inability to edit posts might make them a more reliable source than, for example, edited diaries since they are able to show even the worst parts of a person. While this may help to put our heroes into perspective it does not give them a chance to demonstrate that their views have changed, surely everyone deserves a chance to defend themselves? While this is true, it appears that in order to do this on social media the easiest way is to delete old posts, in fact Marie Le Conte (Twitter @youngvulgarian 20th July 2018 9:18pm) argued that in future we will find it ‘baffling that public figures do not delete old posts. While it might be suggested that to do this reduces accountability, everyone deserves the chance to edit or filter any sources from them before they hit the public eye. Although sites such as Twitter are immediately in the public eye a person’s tweets are not considered public property. Therefore it could be suggested that social media can grow to be a suitable historical source although it will need to be handled differently to other forms of primary material
The Colourful Historian 