It seems data retention concerns vary a great deal from one state (and one country) to another. Data on social media networks is widely believed to belong to the SM networks. FOIA requests? "Send them to Facebook or Twitter" is the usual sentiment.
But not all that irregularly, a law enforcement agency tells me that because of state laws, it has to maintain all information itself. In Washington state, for example, one sheriff’s deputy manually e-mails every tweet his agency sends to an e-mail address specially set up to store tweets.
Paid tools are out there to help with data retention needs, but in case that’s not an option, here’s a tool that may make his job easier -- and yours, as well. Try TweetBackup.com
With TweetBackup, you log in with your Twitter account, authorize the app, and a short time later you’ll receive an e-mail that your archive is ready. It will contain your last 3,200 tweets. You can export as .csv, text or html.
Along with your tweets, you’ll also have a list of people you follow. TweetBackup is made and supported by BackUpIfy.
Want More?
Attend the next Social Media the Internet and Law Enforcement (SMILE) Conference, which will be held Sept. 10-12 in Richmond, Va. Click here for more information or to register.