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York County to download Facebook archives and transition livestreams to YouTube to meet retention guidance
Summary
County officials said Facebook now limits archived livestream availability to 30 days; the county will download prior recordings to a drive and move future livestreams to YouTube to comply with Secretary of State guidance requiring one-year retention after minutes are approved.
County officials told the board that Facebook changed how long it retains archived livestreams and that the county must act to meet open-meeting retention expectations.
A member of the county tech committee said Facebook now limits archived live videos to 30 days, while the Secretary of State’s guidance advises that meeting recordings should be kept for one year after approval of the minutes. To reconcile that, staff have downloaded prior Facebook broadcasts to an internal drive for website access and plan to transition future livestreams to YouTube, which the committee believes will be easier to retain and to link from the county website.
The tech committee is also exploring who can control and troubleshoot the livestream during meetings so that broadcasts are resilient when technical problems occur. The committee said it will continue to pull Facebook recordings while the county still uses Facebook and will move to YouTube Live going forward.
Why it matters: Retaining meeting recordings for the period required by open-meetings guidance preserves public access to government deliberations and helps ensure compliance with state expectations.
What’s next: The county’s website administrator was tasked with downloading past recordings and publishing them to an internal drive; the tech committee will work on the YouTube migration and staffing for on-site troubleshooting.
