This talk will look at how we might consider social media platforms as sites for contemporary collecting in museums. As more and more of our contemporary culture plays out on these digital platforms, they become increasingly important as environments where cultural, technical, and political events and developments unfold. In this talk, we’ll look at the types of collecting that might take place through social media, some of the practical considerations around acquiring and accessioning social media artifacts and reflect on the ethical dimensions of collecting from social media.

Using four different case studies, we’ll explore how collecting born-digital objects from social media sites adds layers of complexity to the acquisition process. We’ll explore participatory collecting through the work of the Collecting Social Photo project, mass collecting through the Library of Congresses early attempt at collecting Twitter (or should we say X), exploratory collecting through the National Science and Media Museum’s ‘Absolute Unit’ meme acquisition, and the influence of curatorial positioning in social media collecting activities by the Victoria & Albert Museum and Museum of London. There are ethical dimensions to any collecting activity and collecting from social media raises questions around informed consent, responsible approaches to preservation, and notions of ownership. The talk will touch on all of these and offer opportunities to reflect on and discuss the implications of them.