Far from serving as a neutral reflection of events, digital social memory can actively shape political reality. Chaired by Shannon Mattern, Associate Professor of Media Studies at the New School, this panel explores the political uses of web archives, focusing on the White House’s archiving of President Obama’s Twitter account and Net Freedom Pioneers’ efforts to deliver web archives to areas affected by internet censorship. Participants include Mehdi Yahyanejad, founder of Net Freedom Pioneers; Josh Miller, Director of Product Management for the White House’s Office of Digital Strategy; and Dragan Espenschied, Preservation Director at Rhizome.

This panel was presented as part of Digital Social Memory. The conference convened a diverse range of experts in various facets of digital social memory for an afternoon of case-studies and conversations addressing the implications of Webrecorder’s model for the web archiving field and for digital social memory as a whole. The program was organized by Michael Connor, Artistic Director, Rhizome, with Aria Dean, Assistant Curator, Rhizome.